NRLF 


B   M   3fiO 


STORY  0 


kND  OTHER  STORIES 


LIBRA 


UNiVCRDTY  OF 

CALIF    !-N"A 
SANTA  CRUZ 


[Page  1 86 


"DR.  CHEEVER  AND  WHITE  TURNED  TO  SEE  THE 
PLAYER" 


THE  STORY  OF  A  STORY 


AND    OTHER    STORIES 


BRANDER  MATTHEWS 


ILLUSTRATED 


NEW     YORK 

HARPER    &    BROTHERS    PUBLISHERS 
1893 


Copyright,  1893,  by  HARPER.  &  BROTHERS. 

All  rights  reserved. 


P 


I  take  pleasure  in  inscribing  these  stories  to 
T.  B.  ALDRICH 

From  whom  1  learnt  the  trade 
of  story-telling. 


CONTENTS 


THE  STORY  OF  A  STORY. 

PAGE 

I. — THE  AUTHOR 3 


II. — THE  EDITOR 
III. — THE  ARTIST 


IV. — THE  PRINTER 


9 

13 
15 


V. — THE  PUBLISHER 1 7 

19 


VI. — THE  CRITIC 


VII. — TWO  YOUNG  READERS 22 

VIII. — ONE  OLD  READER 28 

IX. — ANOTHER  READER 32 

X.  — A  READER  OF  ANOTHER  SORT     .       .  42 

A  CAMEO  AND  A  PASTEL. 

I. — THE  CAMEO  :    ROME,  A.  U.  C.  722    .       .  53 

ii. — THE  PASTEL:  NEW  YORK,  A.D.,  1892  63 
TWO  LETTERS. 

I. — FROM  AN   OCCASIONAL  CORRESPOND- 
ENT OF  THE  "  GOTHAM  GAZETTE  "  79 
II. — FROM  MR.  SAMUEL  SARGENT   TO  THE 

"  GOTHAM  GAZETTE "      ...  132 


vi  CONTENTS 

THE  NEW  MEMBER  OF  THE  CLUB. 

PAGE 

I. — THE  FIRST  SATURDAY 139 

II. — THE  SECOND  SATURDAY       ....  150 

III. — THE  THIRD  SATURDAY 159 

ETELKA  TALMEYR :  A  TALE  OF  THREE 

CITIES. 

i. — LONDON 179 

II. — NEW  YORK 192 

III. — PARIS 207 

IV. — NEW  YORK 2ig 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


"DR.  CHEEVER  AND  WHITE  TURNED 

TO  SEE  THE  PLAYER  "  .  .  .  .  Frontispiece 

"THE  MUSIC  SWELLED,  AND  SHE  BE- 
GAN TO  DANCE  " Facing  Page  68 

"THE  CABLE  PARTED,  AND  HIS  FOES 

FELL  INTO  THE  RIVER  BELOW ".  "  "  128 

"WE  WENT  INTO  THE  GRILL-ROOM, 

AND  SAT  DOWN  TO  SUPPER".  .  "  "142 

"MR.  ROBERT  WHITE  SAT  IN  A  COR- 
NER, EATING  A  LONELY  DINNER "  "  "  IQ2 

"  THEY  CAME  DOWN  TO  THE  FOOT- 
LIGHTS TOGETHER" '  "  204 


THE   STORY    OF    A   STORY 


THE   STORY  OF  A  STORY 


I. — THE  AUTHOR. 

THE  author  turned  on  his  couch  uneasily 
as  he  was  dictating  the  final  paragraphs  of 
his  story.  His  wife  sat  writing  at  a  table 
by  the  window.  In  the  little  square  far 
down  below  them  there  were  signs  of  spring; 
the  first  touch  of  warmer  weather  had  been 
felt,  and  the  trees  were  beginning  to  bud 
out  timidly.  The  afternoon  sun  fell  aslant 
the  floor  in  long  lines  of  feeble  light.  The 
invalid  looked  out  towards  the  west  and 
caught  a  glimpse  of  the  floating  clouds  red- 
dening as  the  day  waned.  He  gazed  at  them 
as  though  anxious  to  borrow  their  golden 
hues  to  color  his  words. 

His  wife  finished  setting  on  paper  the  last 
sentence  he  had  dictated.  She  waited  si- 


4  THE   STORY    OF   A   STORY 

lently  for  the  next,  but  in  a  moment  she 
looked  up. 

"  What  is  it,  dear  ?"  she  asked,  when  she 
saw  the  look  on  his  face. 

"  We  shall  have  another  glorious  sunset 
to-day,"  he  answered.  "  How  lucky  it  is 
that  we  live  so  high  up  in  the  air  that  we 
can  see  them." 

"  Shall  I  raise  you  up  ?"  she  inquired, 
hastily. 

"  Not  yet,"  he  responded  ;  "  I  must  finish 
the  story  first.  Where  was  I  ?" 

She  took  up  the  sheets  of  manuscript 
which  lay  before  her  and  replied,  "  I  had 
just  written  this  :  '  In  morals,  as  in  geome- 
try, the  straight  line  is  the  shortest  distance 
between  two  points  ;  and  John  Strang  never 
swerved  from  the  swift  path.  He  was  alone, 
but  a  true  hero  needs  no  other  witness  than 
his  own  conscience — '  " 

"  I  know,  I  know,"  the  author  interrupted ; 
"  a  couple  of  hundred  words  more  and  the 
work  is  done.  I'm  going  to  wind  it  up  short 
and  sharp,  and  give  the  reader  a  real  sur- 
prise. '  He  strode  forward  fearlessly.  Out 
of  the  darkness  there  came  to  meet  him—'  " 


THE   STORY   OF   A   STORY  5 

Having  begun  again  to  dictate,  the  sick 
man  with  an  obvious  effort  braced  himself 
as  he  lay,  and  continued  until  he  reached 
the  end  of  the  tale,  pausing  but  for  an  in- 
stant now  and  again  to  find  the  fit  word,  at 
once  simple  and  strong,  to  carry  his  mean- 
ing. The  last  few  sentences  fell  from  his 
lips  swiftly,  tumbling  one  over  another  in 
the  haste  of  their  maker  to  be  at  the  goal  of 
his  desires ;  and  his  amanuensis  had  to  let 
her  pen  speed  over  the  paper  to  keep  pace 
with  her  husband's  rapid  speech.  At  last 
the  story-teller  concluded,  "  '  So  it  came  to 
pass  that  John  Strang  conquered  himself, 
and  thus  he  was  spared  the  knowledge  that 
the  saddest  of  all  joys  is  a  satisfied  ven- 
geance.' "  The  tension  of  his  task  relaxed 
all  at  once,  the  author  fell  back  on  his  pil- 
low, and  the  westering  sun  cast  a  rosy  light 
on  his  pale,  thin  face,  with  its  eager  eyes 
and  its  determined  mouth.  He  watched  his 
wife  while  she  wrote  this  final  sentence,  and 
then  he  said,  "That  is  all." 

She  numbered  the  page  she  had  just  com- 
pleted, and  laid  it  on  top  of  the  others. 

His  eyes  followed  her  movements  wist- 


6  THE   STORY   OF   A    STORY 

fully,  and  then  he  looked  anxiously  into  her 
face,  as  though  waiting  for  her  judgment  on 
his  labor. 

When  he  found  that  she  was  intent  on 
sorting  the  pages  in  order  and  did  not  speak, 
he  broke  the  silence  himself. 

"  I'm  afraid  it  is  not  very  good  ?"  he  said, 
tentatively. 

She  looked  up  and  smiled  at  him  proud- 
ly. "  It  is  one  of  the  best  things  you  have 
ever  done,"  she  declared. 

The  color  on  his  cheeks  deepened  a  little 
— but  perhaps  the  sun  was  responsible  for 
this — and  the  light  came  back  to  his  eye. 

"  I'm  afraid  that  it  is  not  very  new,"  he 
returned,  doubtfully. 

"  It  is  the  old,  old  story,"  she  rejoined, 
firmly,  "  and  that  is  always  new  and  always 
true ;  and  it  always  will  be  as  long  as  there 
is  an  honest  man  and  woman  in  the 
world." 

"  The  whole  thing  is  so  fresh  to  me  now," 
he  said,  with  a  hint  of  rising  confidence  in 
his  weary  voice,  "that  I  don't  know  any- 
thing at  all  about  it.  By  to-morrow  I  shall 
be  ready  to  call  it  poor  stuff,  I  suppose.  If 


THE   STORY   OF   A   STORY  7 

it  is  good  for  anything,  I  shall  not  find  it  out 
until  I  get  the  proof  from  the  magazine." 

"  Where  are  you  going  to  send  it  ?"  asked 
his  wife. 

"To  The  Metropolis,  I  think,"  he  re- 
sponded. "  They  read  there  more  promptly 
than  anywhere  else,  and  they  pay  better, 
too." 

"They  didn't  give  you  much  for  that  last 
story  of  yours  they  took,"  she  rejoined. 

"  Well,  they  didn't  like  that  story  very 
much,  and  perhaps  they  were  right,"  he  said. 
"  After  it  had  been  out  a  month  or  so  I  went 
in  and  looked  over  the  scrap-book  of  news- 
paper notices,  and  hardly  one  of  them  said 
a  word  about  my  story." 

"What  does  a  newspaper  man  know 
about  literature  ?"  asked  the  author's  wife, 
indignantly. 

"  You  know  that  they  spoke  to  me  about 
writing  a  serial  for  them ;  that  shows  that 
they  like  my  work,". said  the  author,  "and 
perhaps  this  story  will  please  them  better. 
I  think  the  fight  ought  to  be  popular;  I 
tried  to  make  it  a  good  fight — " 

"And    you    did,"   she    interrupted;    "I 


8  THE   STORY   OF   A   STORY 

got  so  excited  over  it  I  could  hardly 
write." 

"  I  wished  to  have  it  a  good  fight  in  it. 
self,"  he  continued,  "  and  at  the  same  time 
typical  of  the  eternal  strife  of  good  and  evil. 
Yet  I  don't  know  whether  I  really  want  any- 
body to  suspect  the  allegory  or  not.  I  think 
I  like  stories  best  when  the  moral  is  quite 
concealed." 

"  You  haven't  flaunted  your  moral  in  the 
reader's  face,  if  that's  what  you  mean,"  she 
returned.  "  But  it's  there  all  the  same ; 
and  I  don't  doubt  it  '11  do  good  too.  I 
like  the  man ;  he's  a  gentleman  and  a 
man  at  the  same  time.  And  I  could  fall 
in  love  with  the  heroine ;  she's  lovely, 
and  noble,  and  womanly,  and  feminine, 
too  !" 

He  looked  her  full  in  the  face,  and  there 
was  a  touching  sweetness  in  his  voice  as  he 
said,  "  How  can  I  ever  draw  any  other  kind 
of  woman— when  I  have  so  fine  a  model  be- 
fore me  ?'' 

She  rose  from  the  little  table  by  the  win- 
dow and  crossed  over  to  his  couch.  He 
held  out  his  hand — a  long,  delicately  mod- 


THE   STORY   OF    A   STORY  g 

elled  hand — and  she  clasped  it.     Then  she 
bent  over  and  kissed  him. 

The  author  smiled  up  at  her  again,  though 
a  sudden  twist  of  pain  stiffened  the  lines  of 
his  face,  and  beads  of  chill  perspiration  be- 
gan to  form  on  his  brow.  She  knew  the 
signs  of  coming  suffering,  and  her  heart 
sank ;  but  she  still  smiled  at  him  with  her 
mouth  and  her  eyes  as  she  moved  away  to 
prepare  the  medicine  it  was  now  time  for 
him  to  take. 


II. — THE   EDITOR. 

The  ample  offices  of  The  Metropolis, 
an  illustrated  monthly  magazine,  filled  a 
floor  of  a  broad  building  in  Broadway.  The 
publisher,  with  his  assistants  and  with  half 
a  score  of  book-keepers  and  clerks,  occu- 
pied the  front  of  the  loft,  and  the  editorial 
rooms  and  the  art  department  were  crowded 
together  in  the  rear  of  the  building.  The 
private  office  of  the  editor-in-chief  was  to  be 
reached  only  by  passing  through  the  rooms 
in  which  sat  his  associates,  and  he  was  thus 


10  THE    STORY    OF   A    STORY 

in  a  measure  protected  from  the  intrusion  of 
the  bores  and  the  cranks. 

One  Monday  morning  towards  the  latter 
part  of  May,  two  or  three  weeks  after  the 
author  had  made  an  end  of  dictating  the 
story  to  his  wife  as  he  lay  on  his  customary 
couch  of  pain,  the  editor  sat  in  this  inner 
office  in  consultation  with  his  principal  as- 
sistant. 

"  Have  you  got  the  schedule  for  the  mid- 
summer number  there  ?"  asked  the  editor. 

His  assistant,  whose  duty  it  was  to  "  make 
up"  the  magazine,  handed  the  editor  a  sheet 
of  paper  strangely  ruled  and  half  covered 
with  penciled  notes. 

"  I  want  to  see  if  we  can't  make  room  for 
this  story,"  said  the  editor,  taking  a  folded 
manuscript  from  the  little  hand-bag  he  al- 
ways carried  to  and  from  his  own  house, 
where  he  absented  himself  often  that  he 
might  read  the  more  important  contributions 
at  leisure. 

"  How  long  is  it  ?"  asked  the  assistant. 

"  Between  eight  and  nine  thousand 
words,"  the  editor  answered.  "  It  is  a 
breezy,  out-door  thing,  well  suited  to  a  sum- 


THE   STORY   OF    A   STORY  n 

mer  number,  and  there's  a  fight  in  it  that 
will  be  a  relief  to  the  quietness  of  the  serial. 
In  fact,  this  story  will  help  to  balance  the 
midsummer  fiction  in  a  way  I  like." 

"Well,"  responded  the  subordinate,  "we 
can  get  it  in,  if  you.  insist,  although  it  will  be 
a  tight  squeeze  to  pack  in  nine  thousand 
words.  Must  it  be  illustrated?  That'll 
make  it  all  the  harder." 

"  One  picture  will  be  enough,  at  any  rate," 
the  editor  rejoined. 

"  Then  I  think  I  see  how  to  work  it,"  said 
the  assistant,  after  consulting  the  schedule. 
"We'll  put  the  picture  at  the  end  of  the 
second  cut  form  and  run  in  a  plain  form 
next.  That  ought  to  do  it  nicely;  and  of 
course  we  can  tuck  in  a  poem  to  fill  up  the 
last  page  if  we  have  to." 

"  All  right,"  assented  the  editor. 

The  assistant  added  a  few  suggestions, 
words,  and  figures  to  the  schedule ;  and 
then  he  looked  up  and  remarked :  "  The 
artist  will  have  to  .hump  himself  if  we  are 
going  to  get  the  plate  in  time  for  the  mid- 
summer. That  comes  out  the  last  week  in 
July,  and  here  we  are  near  the  end  of  May. 


12  THE   STORY   OF    A    STORY 

All  the  other  cuts  are  done ;  at  least  they 
told  me  yesterday  they  expected  the  last  one 
in  to-day." 

"There's  that  new  man  just  back  from 
Paris,"  said  the  editor,  "  that  pupil  of  Ge- 
rome's  they  have  been  talking  about  in  the 
art  department.  They  might  let  him  do  it." 

"I  don't  believe  that  the  public  really 
likes  those  impressionist  scratches,"  the  as- 
sistant responded;  "but  they  say  this  man 
is  a  quick  worker,  and  he  is  anxious  for  a 
job.  I  suppose  we  can  risk  it." 

"  Then  you  had  better  talk  to  them  about 
it  this  morning,"  the  editor  declared,  "  and 
see  that  he  gets  the  manuscript  at  once." 

The  assistant  took  the  flat  package  of 
folded  paper  and  began  to  discuss  another 
subject :  "Don't  you  think  we  ought  to 
have  a  taking  title  for  that  yarn  about  yacht- 
ing in  the  Pacific  ?  How  would  *  From 
China  to  Peru'  do?" 


THE   STORY   OF   A   STORY  13 


III. — THE   ARTIST. 

There  is  a  little  restaurant  in  a  little 
house  on  a  little  street  not  far  from  a  clus- 
ter of  studio-buildings,  and  one  of  the  many 
young  artists  who  frequent  it  intermittently 
once  called  it  "  The  Fried  Cat,"  and  by  that 
picturesque  but  doubtful  name  the  little  res- 
taurant has  ever  since  been  known. 

The  specialty  of  "The  Fried  Cat"  was  a 
fifty-cent  dinner,  wine  and  coffee  included. 
This  was  served  in  three  little  rooms,  open- 
ing one  into  the  other  and  containing  per- 
haps a  score  of  small  square  tables. 

On  a  rainy  evening  in  the  last  week  of 
May  a  dozen  or  so  of  these  tables  were  oc- 
cupied. At  one  of  them,  near  the  open 
French  windows  that  looked  into  the  little 
yard  behind  the  restaurant,  sat  three  young 
men  smoking  their  cigarettes  with  their  cof- 
fee. The  tallest  of  them  was  the  artist  who 
had  recently  returned  from  Paris,  where  he 
had  studied  at  the  Beaux  Arts  under  M. 
Gerome. 


14  THE    STORY   OF   A    STORY 

"  I  hear  you  are  working  for  The  Me- 
tropolis" said  one  of  his  friends,  a  young 
poet  who  supported  himself  by  editing  a  so- 
ciety weekly. 

"  They've  been  after  me  to  do  something 
for  them  ever  since  I  got  back,"  responded 
the  artist,  rolling  a  fresh  cigarette  and  light- 
ing it  with  the  stump  of  the  old  one.  "  I 
don't  care  much  to  do  black-and-white. 
Color  is  my  stronghold,  you  know,  though 
I'm  not  afraid  of  line.  But  I  wanted  to 
collar  the  dollars,  and,  besides,  it's  good 
practice." 

"What  is  the  story  like?"  asked  the 
poet. 

"The  story ?"  echoed  the  artist.  "Oh, 
the  story  isn't  much.  At  least  I  don't  care 
for  that  kind  of  stuff — heroism,  you  know — 
Romeo  and  Juliet,  and  all  that  sort  of  thing. 
But  there's  a  fight  in  it,  a  fight  on  a  lot  of 
sand-dunes,  and  "I've  done  them  a  regular 
Cazin.  It  isn't  easy  to  get  real  plein-airiste 
effects  into  a  black-and-white,  but  I  think 
I've  got  'em  this  time." 

"  Is  it  done  already  ?"  inquired  the  third 
man  at  the  table,  a  sad-looking  young  fellow 


THE   STORY   OF   A   STORY  15 

who  wrote  comic  sketches  for  the  weekly 
papers. 

"  Oh  yes,"  answered  the  artist.  "  I 
glanced  over  the  story  last  night,  and  this 
morning  I  got  me  a  model,  and  I  knocked 
off  the  sketch  in  two  or  three  hours." 

"  Oils  or  pen-and-ink  ?"  the  poet  queried. 

"Oh,  oils,  of  course,"  the  artist  respond- 
ed ;  "  and  they  are  going  to  process  it  like 
those  '  Tartarin '  things,  you  know." 

"How  will  it  come  out?"  the  humorist 
asked. 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know,"  said  the  artist,  "  and 
I  don't  much  care.  I'm  to  have  my  sketch 
back,  and  if  the  cut  isn't  good  I  can  make 
a  water-color  of  the  subject  for  one  of  the 
fall  exhibitions.  I  believe  I  could  make  a 
lovely  water-cooler  of  it — tout  pourri  de  chic, 
you  know." 

IV. — THE    PRINTER. 

Early  in  June  there  came  a  spell  of  in- 
tensely hot  weather  such  as  often  lends  un- 
expectedness to  the  New  York  spring.  No- 
where were  the  effects  of  the  heat  more 


16  THE   STORY   OF    A    STORY 

unpleasant  than  in  the  long,  low  rooms 
where  worked  the  compositors  employed  by 
the  company  that  printed  The  Metropolis. 
Pending  the  completion  of  a  spacious  build- 
ing in  the  course  of  construction  next  door, 
the  whole  force  of  the  large  printing  estab- 
lishment was  crowded  into  three  adjoining 
private  houses  hastily  and  incommodiously 
altered  to  serve  as  a  makeshift  while  the 
new  edifice  was  going  up.  Even  at  mid- 
day in  June,  when  the  longest  day  in  the 
year  was  close  at  hand,  the  light  was  insuffi- 
cient ;  and  the  men  who  stood  in  their  shirt- 
sleeves at  the  tall  cases  near  the  middle  of 
the  narrow  room  had  to  rely  for  illumination 
on  flaring  gas-jets  that  added  to  the  heat  of 
the  loft  and  to  the  foulness  of  the  air. 

When  the  shrill  whistle  announced  the 
end  of  the  noon  hour  of  rest,  a  huge,  blond 
German  printer  took  his  place  beneath  one 
of  these  gas-jets  and  grumbled  as  he  gazed 
down  at  the  sheets  of  manuscript  he  had 
taken  from  the  copy -hook.  These  were 
pages  of  the  story  the  author  had  dictated 
to  his  wife. 

"  Was  fur  schreiben  sind  diese  ?"  he  growl- 


THE   STORY   OF   A   STORY  17 

ed,  as  he  examined  the  fine  and  delicate  cal- 
ligraphy of  the  lady.  "  Himmel !  vy  don'd 
dese  Amerigan  women  write  like  Chris- 
tians ?  Vas  dere  effer  such  scrieben.  als 
diese  ?  Ugh  !  Und  I  come  in  late,  dinkin' 
I  might  ged  a  fat  take  on  dat  cyglobedia  ! 
Veil,  I  must  vollow  gopy,  I  suppose  ;  it  is 
bud  four  or  five  schdigs  I  have." 

Still  grumbling,  he  hung  the  sheets  of 
manuscript  on  a  hook  at  the  head  of  his 
case  and  took  up  his  composing-stick.  As 
he  was  adjusting  his  broad  spectacles  over 
his  solid  nose  to  see  what  he  was  to  set  up, 
the  gas-jet  over  his  head  flared  up  and  then 
went  out  suddenly. 

"  Ach,  himmel !"  cried  the  printer  in  dis- 
gust, as  he  tried  to  set  the  gas-fixture  in  or- 
der. "  Das  arbeitet  nicht.  Muss  mann  es 
fixiren !" 


V. — THE   PUBLISHER. 

On  the  last  day  of  June  a  full  set  of 
sheets  of  the  midsummer  number  of  The 
Metropolis  were  laid  on  the  desk  of  the 
publisher  of  that  magazine ;  and  he  spent 


1 8  THE   STORY   OF   A   STORY 

an  hour  or  more  in  examining  them  care- 
fully and  in  deciding  upon  the  best  means 
of  calling  to  them  the  attention  of  the 
public. 

Three  or  four  times  the  publisher  came 
back  to  the  story  which  the  author  had  dic- 
tated and  which  the  artist  had  illustrated. 
At  last  he  touched  a  bell  and  told  the  boy 
who  came  in  response  to  this  summons  to 
go  to  the  assistant  editor  and  to  request 
that  the  assistant  editor  would  please  be  so 
kind  as  to  come  in  to  see  the  publisher  on 
his  way  out  to  lunch. 

Towards  one  o'clock,  when  the  assistant 
editor  came  in,  the  publisher  asked,  "  When 
do  you  send  out  your  literary  notes  about 
the  midsummer  number?" 

"Between  the  i5th  and  2oth,  I  suppose," 
answered  the  assistant  editor.  "  There  are 
lots  of  good  things  in  the  midsummer  to 
hang  a  note  on." 

"  If  it's  just  the  same  to  you,"  the  pub- 
lisher continued, "  I  wish  you  wouldn't  send 
out  a  note  about  the  story  this  picture  illus- 
trates," and  he  pointed  to  a  full-page  draw- 
ing wherein  two  men  were  engaged  in  dead- 


THE   STORY   OF   A   STORY  19 

ly  combat  on  a  strip  of  sand  running  out 
into  the  sea. 

"  We  don't  often  make  any  preliminary 
announcement  of  mere  short  stories,  you 
know,"  the  assistant  editor  explained. 

"  Then  that's  all  right,"  said  the  publish- 
er. "  You  see  I  don't  want  to  seem  to  bear 
down  too  hard  on  any  one  thing.  Now  I  like 
this  picture.  It  will  make  a  first-rate  poster." 

"  That's  so,"  assented  the  assistant  editor, 
seeing  at  once  the  effectiveness  of  the  scene 
for  the  purpose  of  arresting  the  vagrant  at- 
tention of  the  casual  magazine-buyer  at  a 
news-stand  or  in  a  book-store. 

"  And  if  I  use  the  picture  on  all  our  post- 
ers," the  publisher  explained,  "  it  seems  to 
me  better  to  say  nothing  about  the  story  in 
the  advance  notes." 


VI. — THE  CRITIC. 

The  night  before  the  midsummer  number 
of  the  magazine  was  published,  copies  were 
sent  out  to  the  daily  newspapers  for  review, 
In  the  office  of  the  Gotham  Gazette  the  mag- 


20  THE    STORY    OF    A    STORY 

azines  of  the  month  were  regarded  not  as 
literature  but  as  news.  They  were  not  crit- 
icised by  one  of  the  literary  critics  of  the 
journal,  but  by  one  of  the  minor  editorial 
writers  of  the  paper,  who  was  wont  to  run 
rapidly  over  the  pages  of  every  review  and 
monthly  magazine  as  it  arrived,  submitting 
to  the  managing  editor  any  article  which 
seemed  likely  to  furnish  a  text  for  a  column 
of  brevier,  and  penning  a  hasty  paragraph 
or  two  in  which  he  recorded  the  impressions 
of  his  cursory  perusal. 

Thus  it  was  that  on  the  morning  of  Au- 
gust ist  the  Gotham  Gazette  printed  upon  its 
editorial  page  in  solid  minion  these  words  : 

"  The  midsummer  number  of  The  Metrop- 
olis is  neither  better  nor  worse  than  the 
conductors  of  this  admirably  illustrated  mag- 
azine have  accustomed  us  to.  The  frontis- 
piece is  a  portrait  of  William  Dunlap,  who 
helped  to  found  the  National  Academy  of 
Design,  and  who  wrote  a  history  of  the  thea- 
tre in  America ;  the  face  of  the  picture  is  in- 
teresting but  rather  weak ;  and  the  accom- 
panying article  is  weak  and  not  interesting. 
1  From  China  to  Peru '  is  the  illustrated  rec- 


THE   STORY   OF   A    STORY  21 

ord  of  a  daring  voyage  in  a  ten-ton  sloop, 
almost  as  good  as  one  of  Mr.  Robert  White's 
delightful  marines.  An  anonymous  writer 
discusses  'The  Natural  History  of  Games,' 
and  shows  how  modern  scientific  theories 
account  for  the  survival  of  the  sports  best 
fitted  for  a  given  people  at  a  given  time ; 
thus  the  game  of  poker,  for  example,  seem- 
ingly invented  by  brave  fellows  of  Queen 
Elizabeth's  day  (when  it  was  known  as  pri- 
mero),  was  revived  in  the  very  nick  of  time 
to  serve  the  needs  of  the  Argonauts  of  For- 
ty-nine. The  '  Hills  of  the  Sky '  is  a  pleas- 
antly written  and  amply  illustrated  account 
of  the  colony  of  authors  and  artists  at  Onte- 
ora  in  the  Catskills.  Under  the  modest  and 
somewhat  misleading  title  of  *  The  Strange 
Misadventures  of  a  Blue  Pencil '  a  member 
of  the  staff  of  the  Gotham  Gazette  contributes 
a  fresh  and  picturesque  description  of  the 
making  of  a  great  daily  newspaper.  In  '  Pas- 
ticcio ' — the  new  department  for  humorous 
odds  and  ends — there  is  a  rather  preten- 
tious screed,  'On  the  Wise  Choice  of  a 
Mother -in -Law,'  which  some  readers  will 
doubtless  consider  funny. 


22  THE    STORY   OF   A   STORY 

"  Mr.  Rupert  de  Ruyter  continues  his  se- 
rial, 'The  Poor  Islanders,'  which  is  now 
seen  to  be  a  rather  bitter  attack  on  British 
'  society ;'  Mr.  de  Ruyter  is  best  known  as  a 
poet,  but  this  novel  shows  that  he  is  a  mas- 
ter of  prose  as  well.  The  rest  of  the  fiction 
in  this  number  of  The  Metropolis  does  not 
call  for  comment ;  perhaps  the  best  of  the 
three  short  stories  is  a  rather  high-flown, 
semi-realistic  tale  of  young  love  triumphant, 
an  old  enough  story,  but  yet  told  with  a  cer- 
tain freshness." 


VII. — TWO   YOUNG   READERS. 

On  the  first  Saturday  evening  in  August 
there  was  a  gathering  of  young  people  in  a 
house  built  on  a  rock  and  projecting  its 
deep  piazzas  over  the  waters  of  Narragan- 
sett  Bay  within  sight  of  Point  Judith.  The 
owner  of  the  place  had  sons  and  daughters, 
and  these  sons  and  daughters  had  each  a 
friend  ;  and  so  it  was  that  there  was  a  house- 
ful of  company,  and  that  the  easy  laughter 
of  young  men  and  maidens  filled  the  broad 


THE   STORY   OF   A   STORY  23 

hall  and  the  wide  parlors.  There  had  been 
lawn-tennis  all  the  afternoon  on  the  smooth 
sward  which  sloped  gently  away  on  one  side 
of  the  house,  with  its  grass  almost  as  green- 
ly beautiful  as  the  close-cropped  turf  of  Eng- 
land ;  then  there  had  been  a  late  dinner  en- 
livened by  the  humor  of  a  young  lawyer,  a 
comrade  of  the  eldest  son,  and  able  to  leave 
the  city  only  from  Friday  to  Monday ;  and 
now  there  was  a  little  music  in  one  of  the 
parlors,  where  a  group  was  gathered  about 
a  piano  singing  the  old  war-songs  and  the 
older  college  -  songs,  and  changing  from 
"  Marching  through  Georgia  "  to  "  Lauriger 
Horatius." 

The  young  lawyer  from  New  York  had 
strolled  out  on  the  piazza  with  the  eldest 
daughter  of  the  house,  his  junior  by  two  or 
three  years.  The  young  people  walked  to 
and  fro  before  the  open  window  of  the  par- 
lor where  the  others  were  making  merry. 
He  was  a  handsome  young  fellow,  with 
hopeful  eyes  and  a  resolute  mouth.  She 
was  a  good-looking  girl,  thoughtful  and  yet 
lively. 

As  they  walked  they  talked  of  trifles— of 


24  THE   STORY    OF   A   STORY 

the  weather,  of  the  tennis  that  afternoon,  of 
the  city  election  the  next  fall,  of  the  moon- 
light which  silvered  the  waves  that  washed 
the  rocks  below  them. 

"  There  is  the  night  boat,"  he  said,  point- 
ing to  a  dark  shape  in  the  distance  spar- 
kling with  electric  lights  and  speeding  swiftly 
over  the  water  towards  Point  Judith. 

"  Isn't  this  like  a  scene  in  the  theatre  ?" 
she  returned.  "  It  is  so  beautiful  that  it 
seems  unreal." 

"  Suppose  we  go  out  to  the  summer-house 
and  take  it  all  in  ?"  he  suggested. 

One  of  the  piazzas  extended  beyond  the 
house  to  the  very  verge  of  the  rocks,  and 
here  there  was  a  summer-house,  with  a  ham- 
mock swung  from  a  pair  of  its  posts. 

"  Hadn't  you  better  get  into  the  ham- 
mock?" he  asked,  when  they  had  reached 
the  summer-house.  "  You  have  been  play- 
ing tennis  all  the  afternoon." 

"  But  I'm  not  a  bit  tired,"  she  responded, 
as  she  settled  herself  in  the  net-work  and 
began  to  swing  lazily  in  the  moonlight. 
"And  yet  this  is  restful,  I  confess." 

Just  then  the  group  about  the  piano  in 


THE   STORY   OF   A   STORY  25 

the  parlor  a  few  yards  behind  them  changed 
from  "  Rally  Round  the  Flag  "  to  "  Come 
where  my  love  lies  dreaming." 

The  moonbeams  fell  on  the  clear,  pale 
skin  of  the  girl  in  the  hammock,  and  the 
young  man  thought  he  had  never  seen  her 
look  so  lovely ;  and  the  desire  to  tell  her 
how  much  he  loved  her,  and  to  tell  her  that 
very  evening,  at  once,  and  without  danger- 
ous delay,  arose  within  him  irresistibly. 

"  This  is  really  delightful/'  she  said,  when 
the  silence  had  lasted  a  minute  or  two,  "  to 
swing  here  in  the  moonlight  on  a  Saturday 
night,  when  the  work  of  the  week  is  done. 
Don't  you  like  it  ?" 

"  I  ?"  he  responded.     "  Don't  I !" 

"  Then  take  a  chair  and  sit  down  to  enjoy 
it." 

"  To  hear  is  to  obey,"  he  answered,  and 
he  drew  forward  a  camp-stool.  As  it  came 
out  of  the  shadow  something  fell  from  the 
seat.  He  stooped  and  picked  it  up. 

"  It's  only  a  magazine,"  he  explained. 

"  Oh  yes,"  she  returned,  as  a  faint  flush 
came  into  her  cheeks.  "It's  The  Metrop- 
olis, isn't  it  ?" 


26  THE   STORY   OF   A   STORY 

"Yes,"  he  answered,  glancing  down  at  the 
magazine  in  his  hand ;  "  it's  the  August 
number." 

"  I  had  it  out  here  this  morning,"  she  con- 
tinued, hastily,  "  to  read  that  story  you  were 
speaking  about  last  night." 

"  The  one  I  had  read  in  the  train  coming 
here  ?"  he  returned.  "  I  remember  now. 
And  how  did  you  like  it  ?" 

"  It  was  splendid,"  she  responded,  with 
interest.  "  There  was  too  much  fighting, 
but  it  was  thrilling,  and  the  hero  was  a  real 
hero." 

"  Well,  I  thought  he  was  more  of  a  real 
man  than  most  of  the  heroes  we  see  in 
books,"  the  young  lawyer  replied. 

"  Of  course  the  girl  was  a  goose,"  the 
young  lady  went  on. 

"  Oh  !"  cried  the  young  man,  a  little  taken 
aback.  "  Do  you  know,  I  rather  liked  that 
girl  ?" 

"  Oh  no  !"  persisted  the  occupant  of  the 
hammock,  sitting  up  suddenly.  "  I'm  sure 
you  didn't !  I  don't  see  how  any  man 
could  ever  love  a  creature  like  that.  Could 
you  ?" 


THE   STORY   OF   A   STORY  27 

"It  is  easy  to  answer  that  question," 
said  the  young  man,  as  his  heart  gave  a 
bound.  "  I  could  love  only  one  woman  in 
the  world  ;  I  do  love  only  one  woman  ;  I 
can  never  love  any  other." 

Then  he  paused  for  a  moment.  The  color 
went  out  of  her  face,  but  she  said  nothing. 

"  You  know  who  she  is,"  he  went  on  pas- 
sionately ;  "  you  are  not  blind.  You  know 
that  I  love  you" 

Here  he  dropped  on  his  knees  beside  the 
hammock  and  seized  her  hand. 

"  I  love  you !"  he  repeated,  fervently. 
"  Can  you  love  me  a  little  ?" 

She  made  no  answer  in  words,  but  there 
was  a  clasping  of  the  hand  he  held.  Then 
he  threw  his  arms  about  her  as  she  lay  in  the 
hammock  and  kissed  her. 

The  music  still  went  on  in  the  parlor; 
the  moonlight  still  danced  across  the  waves ; 
the  night  boat  was  still  visible  in  the  dis- 
tance ;  the  external  world  was  still  what  it 
had  been  but  a  minute  ago  ;  yet  to  the 
young  people  in  the  summer-house  life  had 
never  seemed  so  fair  before. 


28  THE   STORY   OF   A    STORY 


VIII. — ONE   OLD   READER. 

The  next  Saturday  was  a  day  of  intense 
heat ;  it  was  the  last  and  worst  of  five  days 
of  inexorably  rising  temperature ;  it  was  a 
day  when  every  man  who  could  fled  from 
town  as  from  a  fiery  furnace.  In  the  after- 
noon, as  the  great  stores  closed,  tired  shop- 
girls and  salesmen  came  forth  limply  re- 
joicing that  their  half-day's  work  was  done. 
In  the  side  streets,  where  the  tall  tenement- 
houses  towered  aloft,  weary  mothers  strove 
in  vain  to  soothe  their  fretful  children.  The 
horses  of  the  street-cars  staggered  along 
hopelessly,  as  though  they  knew  that  for 
them  there  was  no  surcease  of  labor.  Even 
when  the  fleeting  twilight  began  to  settle 
down  upon  the  city  there  was  no  relief  from 
the  heat. 

About  seven  o'clock  that  evening  a  little 
old  maid  was  riding  in  a  car  of  a  line  which 
twisted  about  through  noisome  neighbor- 
hoods, ill-kept  and  foul  even  in  winter,  and 
now  wellnigh  suffocating.  She  was  a  trim 


THE   STORY   OF   A   STORY  29 

little  old  woman,  neatly  dressed,  well  shod, 
properly  gloved.  She  was  obviously  well- 
to-do,  and  if  she  lingered  in  town  in  the 
thick  of  the  heated  term  it  was  at  the  call 
of  duty.  Ever  since  a  rebel  bullet  had  made 
her  a  widow  before  she  was  a  wife  the  little 
old  maid  had  given  herself  to  works  of 
charity;  and  it  was  in  midsummer,  when 
most  of  the  charitable  people  are  away,  that 
she  had  the  heaviest  demands  upon  her. 
She  took  but  a  scant  vacation  every  year, 
and  it  was  taken  always  in  Lent. 

On  that  hot  and  intolerable  Saturday 
evening  in  August  the  little  old  maid  was 
returning  from  a  day  of  unselfish  and  un- 
pleasant toil  in  a  tenement-house  where  she 
had  been  serving  as  a  volunteer  nurse.  She 
was  worn  with  the  work  and  glad  of  the 
restful  motion  of  the  car.  She  held  in  her 
hand  a  magazine— the  midsummer  number 
of  The  Metropolis ;  but  the  jaded  horses 
had  drawn  her  for  nearly  half  a  mile  before 
she  opened  its  pages.  Even  when  she  finally 
took  it  up  she  turned  the  leaves  with  tired 
inattention  until  a  chance  sentence  in  a  short 
story  caught  her  eye  : 


30  THE   STORY   OF   A   STORY 

"  The  future  is  not  rosier  to  youth  than  is 
the  past  to  age." 

Then  the  little  old  maid  turned  back  to 
the  beginning  of  the  story  which  the  author 
had  dictated  to  his  wife,  and  she  read  it 
through  with  unflagging  interest.  When 
she  had  come  to  the  end  at  last  she  laid  the 
magazine  on  the  seat  beside  her  and  looked 
out  of  the  window  in  front  of  her.  But  she 
did  not  see  what  was  before  her  eyes — the 
high  tenements,  the  enticing  bar-rooms,  the 
scrap  of  green  square.  She  was  not  con- 
scious of  those  who  rode  with  her.  She 
never  noticed  when  her  neighbors  left  the 
car,  and  when  the  vacant  place  on  her  right 
was  taken  by  a  small  boy. 

Her  thoughts  were  over  the  hills  and  far 
away  —  over  the  hills  of  the  years  and  far 
away  in  the  past.  A  tale  of  youth  and  love, 
of  bravery  and  manhood,  had  carried  her 
back  to  her  own  brief  love-story  —  to  her 
own  hero  who  had  gone  to  the  war  a  score  of 
years  before  —  who  had  gone  and  never 
come  back.  She  lived  over  again  that 
final  parting  with  her  young  soldier -lov- 
er, whose  unfound  body  was  lying  in  a 


THE   STORY   OF   A   STORY  31 

nameless  grave  in  a  hollow  of  Malvern 
Hill. 

A  sudden  jolting  of  the  car  as  a  truck 
crossed  the  track,  and  the  little  old  maid 
awoke  from  her  day-dream.  A  glance  at  the 
street  told  her  that  she  had  come  too  far, 
and  that  she  had  passed  the  point  where  she 
wished  to  alight  full  fifteen  minutes  before. 
She  signalled  to  the  conductor  to  stop  the 
car  again. 

As  she  rose  she  recalled  the  story  which 
had  thus  entranced  her,  and  she  turned  back 
to  the  seat  where  she  had  left  it.  But  it  was 
no  longer  there.  The  small  boy  had  seen 
his  opportunity ;  he  had  seized  it ;  and  he 
and  the  little  old  maid's  copy  of  the  mid- 
summer number  of  The  Metropolis  had  gone 
off  together. 

She  sighed,  and  then  she  smiled;  and  on 
her  way  home  on  foot  she  stopped  at  a 
news-stand  and  bought  another  copy  for 
the  sake  of  the  story  she  had  read  already. 


32        THE  STORY  OF  A  STORY 


IX. — ANOTHER  READER. 

In  those  days  —  for  it  was  some  sixteen 
years  after  the  war  that  the  story  which  the 
author  had  dictated  to  his  wife  was  printed 
in  the  midsummer  number  of  The  Me- 
tropolis—  there  was  a  certain  Indian  res- 
ervation stretching  for  a  hundred  miles 
and  more  on  each  side  of  a  great  stream. 
Through  the  reservation  and  down  this 
river  one  day  towards  the  end  of  August 
there  came  floating  a  birch -bark  canoe 
paddled  by  two  stalwart  Indians,  and  con- 
taining also  two  white  men.  They  were 
young  fellows,  both  of  these,  and  they  had 
come  to  spy  out  the  land.  They  were  en- 
gineers—  the  pioneers  of  civilization  in  the 
new  West. 

There  had  been  heavy  rains,  and  the  river 
was  high  in  its  banks.  A  last  shower  had 
passed  over  them  only  an  hour  or  so  before. 
From  the  woods  on  each  hand  came  the  de- 
licious fragrance  of  the  forest  after  a  rain, 
and  a  fresh  breeze  blew  down  with  the  cur- 
rent. 


THE   STORY   OF   A   STORY  33 

"  How  much  farther  is  this  blacksmith's 
ranch?"  asked  one  of  the  young  men,  who 
had  spent  two  years  on  the  Pacific  coast, 
where  everything  is  a  "ranch,"  from  an 
orange  grove  to  a  hennery. 

He  was  the  elder  of  the  two,  a  tall,  hand- 
some young  fellow;  his  companion  was 
thick-set  and  red-haired. 

The  Indian  paddling  at  the  bow  turned 
to  his  comrade  in  the  stern  and  spoke  a 
few  words  in  his  guttural  vernacular,  and 
when  he  had  received  a  monosyllabic  an- 
swer, more  of  a  grunt  than  an  articulate 
sound,  he  replied, 

"  Soon  be  there  now.  'Bout  a  mile  more, 
think." 

"  The  sooner  the  better,"  the  young  en- 
gineer returned.  "  I  shaVt  be  sorry  to  get 
my  head  under  a  roof  for  one  night,  even  if 
it  doesn't  rain  again  as  it  did  last  evening 
when  we  camped.  There  were  times  then 
when  I  thought  the  bottom  had  dropped 
out  of  the  sky." 

"  Are  you  sure  the  blacksmith  can 
take  us  in  ?"  asked  the  other  white 
man. 

3 


34  THE   STORY   OF   A   STORY 

"  Sure,"  replied  the  Indian,  never  pausing 
in  his  rhythmic  paddling. 

In  the  heart  of  the  reservation  there  lived 
one  white  man,  a  blacksmith,  paid  by  the 
United  States  Government  to  do  such  odd 
jobs  as  the  Indians  might  desire.  His  cabin 
was  high  up  on  a  bluff  almost  hidden  by 
clustering  trees  from  the  eyes  of  the  young 
engineers  in  the  birch-bark  even  when  their 
Indians  ceased  paddling  and  tied  the  canoe 
to  the  bank. 

"  Does  he  care  for  company  ?"  one  of 
them  asked,  as  the  four  men  stepped  out  of 
the  light  craft. 

"  How  ?"  inquired  the  Indian  who  an- 
swered most  of  the  many  questions  the  young 
men  were  forever  putting. 

"  Will  he  want  to  see  us  ?"  said  the  white 
man,  shaping  his  inquiry  anew  to  suit  the 
mind  of  the  red  man. 

"  Sure,"  the  Indian  replied.  "  Want  to  see 
me  sure.  I  am  brother  of  one  of  his  wives." 

"  One  of  his  wives  ?"  cried  the  Californian 
engineer.  "  How  many  wives  has  he,  then?" 

"Two  now.  Three  once.  One  dead," 
was  the  sententious  response. 


THE   STORY   OF   A   STORY  35 

"  Oh  !"  said  the  engineer,  thinking  it  best 
to  push  his  inquiry  no  further. 

Although  concealed  from  sight,  the  log- 
cabin  of  the  bigamist  blacksmith  was  scarce 
a  hundred  feet  from  the  bank  of  the  river. 
Half-way  up  the  Indian  brother-in-law  gave 
a  peculiar  cry. 

In  less  than  a  minute  a  young  and  rather 
pretty  Indian  woman  came  flying  down  the 
path  in  eager  delight.  A  second  and  older 
squaw  also  advanced  to  meet  them,  and  of- 
fered to  carry  the  guns  the  young  men  had 
on  their  shoulders.  The  two  engineers  of 
course  refused,  but  the  two  Indians  allowed 
the  women  to  relieve  them  of  their  burdens. 

Brother  and  sister  exchanged  a  few  brief 
sentences,  and  then  the  Indian  turned  and 
said,  "  He  home.  He  glad  to  see  you." 

And  the  blacksmith  was  glad  to  see  them 
— glad  as  only  a  white  man  can  be  who  does 
not  gaze  on  a  face  of  his  own  color  a  dozen 
times  a  year. 

"  Come  right  in,  boys,"  he  cried,  as  soon 
as  he  caught  sight  of  them.  "  Come  right 
in  an'  make  yerselves  at  home.  I  am,  an' 
I  want  ye  should  be.  Put  down  yer  traps, 


36  THE   STORY   OF   A   STORY 

and  the  women  shall  get  ye  somethin'  to  eat. 
Ye  won't  be  goin'  on  again  this  evening  ?" 
he  added,  anxiously. 

"  Not  if  you'll  keep  us  all  night,"  answered 
one  of  the  young  men. 

"  That's  hearty,"  he  responded,  cordially. 
"  Til  keep  ye  a  week  ef  only  ye'll  stay.  It's 
glad  I  am  to  see  ye.  These  women  o'  mine 
are  sosherble  enough — they're  ez  sosherble 
ez  they  know  how — but  after  all  they  ain't 
white." 

He  was  a  large  man,  tall  and  generously 
built ;  his  voice  was  deep  and  full ;  his  am- 
ple beard  was  streaked  with  gray,  and  so 
was  his  shock  of  hair.  He  was  perhaps 
fifty  years  old. 

"  An'  what  might  you  two  boys  be  a-doin' 
here  ?"  he  asked,  after  he  had  made  them 
comfortable. 

"We  are  engineers,"  one  of  them  an- 
swered, "and  we  are — " 

"  Engineers,  eh  ?"  he  interrupted.  "  Well, 
I  worked  in  a  machine-shop  myself  once. 
But  what  are  ye  doin'  out  here— there's  no 
engines  out  here  ?" 

The  young  man  who  had  been  in  Califor- 


THE   STORY   OF   A   STORY 


37 


nia  explained  that,  although  they  were  em- 
ployed by  a  railroad,  they  did  not  run  a  lo- 
comotive. 

He  listened  intently,  but  obviously  failed 
to  understand. 

"Well,"  he  said  at  last,  "whatever  ye're 
here  for,  ye're  welcome.  An'  now  we'll 
have  supper,  and  a  snifter  of  old  rye  and  a 
pipe  after  it." 

When  they  had  finished  supper  the  black- 
smith pushed  aside  the  largest  log  on  the 
hearth,  and,  taking  up  a  burning  stick,  he 
lighted  his  pipe  and  settled  back  for  an 
evening  of  enjoyment. 

Unfortunately  the  two  young  men  had 
been  kept  up  for  several  preceding  nights, 
and  they  were  overburdened  with  sleep. 
The  warmth  of  the  fire,  the  ample  meal, 
and  the  glass  of  liquor  had  weighted  their 
eyelids  despite  their  desire  to  keep  awake 
for  the  sake  of  their  host. 

After  he  had  been  answered  at  random 
once  or  twice,  as  one  or  the  other  of  the  en- 
gineers roused  himself  with  an  effort,  the 
blacksmith  saw  what  the  matter  was. 

"You  two  boys   are   sleepy,"  he   cried, 


38  THE   STORY   OF   A   STORY 

"an1  here  I  am,  like  a  hog,  a-keepin'  ye 
up." 

"  We  are  a  little  drowsy,  I  confess,"  ad- 
mitted one  of  them ;  "  but  we  can  sit  up 
with  you  as  long  as  you  like." 

"  I  allow  I'd  better  get  ye  off  to  bed  ez 
soon  ez  I  can,  or  else  I'll  have  to  carry  ye," 
he  returned,  mastering  his  disappointment 
with  easy  good-nature.  "  Here's  the  bunk 
the  women  have  got  fixed  for  ye  ;  turn  in 
now,  an'  turn  out  early  in  the  mornin',  an' 
we'll  have  a  talk  then." 

The  young  men  thanked  him,  and  made 
ready  for  sleep.  The  old  man  stood  over 
them  as  though  there  was  something  more 
that  he  wished  to  say.  At  last  he  remarked, 
in  a  deprecating  way,  "Ye  haven't,  either 
of  ye,  a  paper  ye  could  lend  me  overnight — 
a  paper  or  a  book  ?  I  ain't  had  anythin'  to 
read  for  a  mighty  long  while  now.  Ef  ye've 
got  anythin',  let  me  have  it  now,  an'  I'll  give 
it  back  to  ye  in  the  mornin'.  I  ain't  sleepy 
to-night,  an'  I'll  take  it  all  in— ef  ye've  got 
anythin'." 

The  engineers  felt  in  their  pockets,  and 
the  young  man  who  had  been  in  Califor- 


THE   STORY   OF   A   STORY  39 

nia  drew  from  his  overcoat  a  copy  of  the 
midsummer  number  of  The  Metropolis. 

"We  haven't  this  morning's  paper,  I'm 
sorry  to  say,"  he  answered,  smiling,  as  he 
proffered  the  magazine,  "  but  here's  the  last 
Metropolis,  if  you'd  like  to  see  it." 

"  The  Metropolis  1"  queried  the  old  man. 

"It's  a  magazine,"  explained  the  engi- 
neer ;  "  there  are  stories  in  it,  and  pictures, 
and  all  sorts  of  things." 

"  Thank  ye,"  the  blacksmith  rejoined,  as 
he  took  the  thick  pamphlet.  "  Pictures,  eh  ? 
Well,  I  like  pictures  too.  Sometimes  these 
newspapers  and  books  are  chock  full  of 
long-tailed  words  that  get  away  from  me." 

With  that  the  young  men  bade  him  good- 
night, and  as  they  turned  into  their  bunk 
they  saw  him  sitting  by  the  fire  with  The 
Metropolis  open  in  his  hand. 

And  when  they  arose  in  the  morning, 
there  sat  the  blacksmith  by  the  fire  still 
grasping  The  Metropolis,  still  intent  upon 
its  pages. 

When  he  saw  them  he  got  up  and  came 
forward. 

"  There's  a  power  of  good  readin'  in  this 


40  THE   STORY    OF   A   STORY 

magaziny  o'  yours,  an'  there's  one  story 
there  done  me  good  to  read." 

The  young  man  who  had  been  in  Califor- 
nia pondered  for  a  moment  and  then  said, 
"  The  story  with  a  fight  in  it  ? — the  one  about 
the  sea-shore  and  the  hill-side  ?" 

"  That's  it,"  the  blacksmith  declared.  "  I 
ain't  read  any  other,  an1  I  don't  want  to — 
now.  That's  a  story,  that  is,  a  real  story, 
like  the  stones  I  used  to  hear  as  a  boy— out 
of  the  Bible,  mostly.  I'd  like  to  have  met 
the  man  that  fought  that  way." 

"The  hero  of  the  story?"  asked  the  in- 
quirer. 

"  Well,  he  was  a  hero,  for  a  fact,"  the  old 
man  responded  ;  "  he  had  sand  in  his  craw, 
that  fellow.  He  was  a  man  ye  could  tie  to. 
Of  course  the  girl  was  true  to  him ;  she 
couldn't  help  it.  A  girl  that  wouldn't 
wait  for  a  man  like  him  wouldn't  be  no 
good." 

This  assertion  was  emphasized  by  a  re- 
sounding slap  on  the  thigh  of  the  speaker. 

"  The  editor  of  The  Metropolis  is  my  cous- 
in," said  the  younger  of  the  engineers.  "  I'll 
ask  him  to  tell  the  author  that  his  story  has 


THE   STORY   OF   A   STORY  41 

found  appreciation  out  here  in  the  back- 
woods." 

"The  author?"  repeated  the  blacksmith. 
"  That's  the  fellow  who  wrote  it,  eh  ?  Well, 
he's  a  man,  too  !  And  he  ain't  any  city  fel- 
low, either,  I'll  bet  ye.  He  knows  the  woods 
too  well  for  that.  He's  lived  out-doors,  he 
has." 

Then  the  pretty  little  squaw  appeared, 
and  stood  shyly  before  them. 

"  That  means  breakfast's  ready,  I  reck- 
on," said  their  host. 

After  they  had  broken  their  fast  the 
young  men  lingered  a  while,  smoking  with 
the  blacksmith  and  enjoying  his  talk. 

When  they  were  about  to  push  off,  the  en- 
gineer who  had  been  in  California  handed 
The  Metropolis  back  to  their  host,  saying, 
"  I  wish  we  had  something  better  to  leave 
with  you  to  remember  us  by.  But  won't 
you  keep  this  ?" 

"  I'll  take  it,  and  thank  ye,"  answered  the 
blacksmith,  heartily.  "  Now  I  can  read  that 
there  story  again." 


42  THE   STORY   OF   A   STORY 


X. — A   READER   OF   ANOTHER   SORT. 

Early  on  the  morning  of  the  last  day  in 
August,  in  the  huge  yard  outside  of  the  rail- 
road station  at  Buffalo,  two  women  were  en- 
gaged in  cleaning  out  a  parlor-car  which  had 
arrived  from  New  York  late  the  night  before, 
and  which  was  to  start  on  its  return  journey 
at  ten  o'clock  that  forenoon. 

In  a  dark  corner  of  the  car,  where  the 
sleepy  porter  might  easily  overlook  it,  one 
of  the  women  found  a  magazine.  It  was  a 
worn  and  ragged  copy  of  the  midsummer 
number  of  The  Metropolis.  The  woman  took 
it  to  the  window  and  turned  its  leaves  with 
unintelligent  looks. 

*'  What's  that  ye  have  ?"  asked  the  other 
woman  from  the  far  end  of  the  car,  paus- 
ing a  moment  in  her  task  of  polishing  the 
windows. 

"  It's  a  paper  or  a  book,  I  don't  know," 
responded  the  finder  of  the  magazine.  "  It's 
pictures  into  it.  I'll  be  takin'  it  home  to  the 


THE   STORY   OF   A   STORY  43 

boy.  He  do  be  wild  now  and  then  readin' 
a  piece  in  the  paper." 

This  was  said  not  without  a  certain  ma- 
ternal pride. 

"  An'  can  the  boy  read  ?"  asked  the  other 
cleaner,  going  back  to  her  work. 

"  He  can  that !"  responded  the  boy's  moth- 
er, folding  the  magazine  and  thrusting  it  into 
the  huge  pocket  of  her  dress.  "  He  reads  as 
fast  and  as  easy  as  the  teacher  herself,  and 
him  only  going  to  school  this  six  months." 

"  An'  how  old  is  the  boy  now  ?"  inquired 
the  other,  crossing  over  to  polish  the  win- 
dows on  the  opposite  side  of  the  car. 

"  It's  fourteen  he'll  be  this  next  week," 
the  mother  replied.  "  He's  the  only  one  of 
six  that's  left  to  me  now,  and  it's  a  good  lad 
he  is,  too,  barring  a  bit  of  wildness  now  and 
then  that  he  gets  from  his  poor  father." 

And  with  that  she  went  out  on  the  plat- 
form to  polish  the  nickel-plated  iron-work. 
She  was  a  woman  of  fifty  or  thereabouts, 
good-natured  and  plain-featured,  hard-work- 
ing and  worn  by  hard  work. 

When  her  long  day's  labor  was  over  she 
went  home  to  her  boy.  They  lived  together 


44  THE   STORY   OF  A   STORY 

in  two  little  rooms  in  a  shanty  over  a  grog- 
shop not  far  from  the  yard  of  the  railroad. 
As  she  mounted  the  rickety  stairs,  she  was 
surprised  at  the  unwonted  silence  in  the 
room  that  served  them  for  kitchen.  Gen- 
erally the  boy  was  home  before  her,  and  he 
had  the  fire  started  in  the  stove  and  the  wa- 
ter in  the  kettle  to  boil  j  and  often  he  came 
to  the  yard  to  meet  her.  When  she  entered 
the  kitchen  that  last  hot  evening  in  August, 
when  even  the  sunset  breeze  from  the  lake 
was  sultry  and  feeble,  there  was  no  boy 
waiting  for  her,  no  fire  laid,  no  water  a- 
boiling. 

But  she  had  scarce  taken  off  her  bonnet 
when  there  was  an  eager  footstep  on  the 
trembling  stairs,  and  the  boy  broke  into  the 
room  joyously. 

"  I  couldn't  help  being  late,  mother,"  he 
cried  ;  "  I  got  a  job  from  a  gentleman  down 
on  Main  Street,  and  he  kept  me  till  now. 
And,  just  think !  He  gave  me  half  a  dol- 
lar— a  silver  half-dollar,  all  in  one  piece." 

And  with  that  he  took  the  coin  from  his 
pocket  and  tossed  it  in  his  mother's  lap. 

"  It  is  a  half-dollar,  sure  enough,"  said  his 


THE   STORY   OF    A   STORY  45 

mother,  after  biting  the  edge  of  the  coin  with 
Old  World  caution. 

"  And  this  is  Saturday  night,  mother,"  her 
son  went  on,  hastily,  "  and  you  won't  have 
to  go  to  work  till  Monday,  so  I  want  you  to 
spend  part  of  this  money  for  yourself,  and 
get  something  good  for  to-morrow's  dinner 
— a  steak,  for  instance — a  steak  and  onions  ! 
You  will,  won't  you,  mother  ? — just  to  please 
me?" 

The  mother  smiled  back  at  him.  "  Well," 
she  said,  "  I'll  see  what  I  can  get  when  I  do 
be  going  out  the  while." 

"And  IVe  got  good  news,  too,  mother," 
the  boy  continued.  "  I've  got  a  place !— at 
least  I  think  that  I'm  going  to  get  one.  The 
gentleman  I  did  the  errand  for — he's  a  law- 
yer— asked  me  if  I  wanted  a  steady  job,  and 
I  said  yes,  and  I'm  to  go  to  his  office  on 
Monday  at  nine  o'clock,  and  he'll  see  if  I 
suit." 

"That's  good  news,  for  a  truth,"  she  re- 
turned. "An'  I've  got  something  you'll  be 
liking  to  see,  too." 

"  What  is  it  ?"  he  cried,  slipping  his  arm 
around  her  and  kissing  her. 


46  THE   STORY   OF   A   STORY 

She  put  her  hand  into  her  pocket  and 
took  out  the  magazine  and  handed  it  to  him. 
"  It's  something  to  read,"  she  said. 

He  opened  it  eagerly  and  turned  the  pages 
with  delightful  anticipations.  "There's  a 
lot  of  reading  here,  and  I'll  have  such  a 
good  time  a-reading  it." 

Seeing  his  ardent  pleasure,  the  mother 
busied  herself  about  the  supper,  lighting  the 
fire  in  the  stove  and  filling  the  kettle  her- 
self. When  the  meal  was  ready  she  called 
him ;  for  a  moment  he  did  not  hear,  so  ab- 
sorbed was  he  with  the  magazine. 

"  There's  all  sorts  of  good  things  in  that 
book,"  he  said,  as  he  took  his  place  at  the 
table — "pictures,  and  poetry,  and  how  a 
man  sailed  across  the  Pacific — don't  they 
have  big  waves  out  there  !  Ever  so  much 
bigger  than  I've  seen  on  the  lake  !  There's 
stories,  too.  I'd  just  begun  one  of  them.  I 
picked  it  out  because  there  was  the  picture 
of  a  fight  in  it,  and  I  wanted  to  know  which 
licked." 

As  soon  as  he  had  eaten  his  supper  the 
boy  lighted  the  little  kerosene-lamp  and  sat 
down  again  at  the  story,  losing  himself  in 


THE   STORY   OF   A   STORY  47 

it  at  once,  and  becoming  wholly  oblivious 
of  all  things  else. 

The  mother  cleared  off  and  washed  up, 
and  then  went  out  to  buy  their  Sunday's 
dinner  with  the  money  he  had  given  her. 

When  she  returned  he  was  still  intent  on 
the  story,  and  in  a  few  minutes  more  he 
came  breathlessly  to  the  end. 

"  Oh,  mother,"  he  cried,  "  this  is  a  splen- 
did story !  It's  the  best  story  I  ever  read  !" 

"  Is  it,  lad  ?"  she  answered,  wearily,  but 
smiling. 

"  Sit  down,  and  let  me  read  it  to  you,"  he 
went  on. 

"  Not  to-night,"  she  answered.  "  I'm  that 
sleepy  I  couldn't  listen  to  anything." 

"To-morrow,  then,"  he  urged. 

"  To-morrow,  if  you  like,"  she  rejoined. 

And  when  to-morrow  came  the  boy  read 
her  the  story  as  best  he  could,  puzzled  now 
and  again  by  a  chance  polysyllable,  but 
struggling  through  bravely. 

"  He  do  read  beautiful,"  was  the  mother's 
comment,  more  interested  in  the  reader  than 
in  what  he  was  reading. 

When  he  had  made  an  end,  and  looked 


48  THE   STORY   OF   A   STORY 

up  all  aglow  with  enthusiasm,  she  said,  "  It's 
a  fine  story,  no  doubt." 

"  A  fine  story,  mother  ?"  he  echoed.  "It's 
great.  It's  true.  That's  the  kind  of  man 
I'd  like  to  be.  That's  the  kind  of  man  I 
mean  to  be,  too." 

"  I  hope  you  won't  be  fighting  a  duel  then 
with  swords,  and  getting  killed." 

"He  wasn't  killed,"  the  boy  retorted  ;  "he 
killed  the  other  man.  And  he  didn't  want 
to  fight  either,  only  he  had  to.  He  was  a 
hero,  that  man.  I  can't  fight,  I  suppose ; 
but  I  can  try  to  be  as  noble  as  he  was,  and 
as  good." 

"  You  are  a  good  boy  now,"  said  his  moth- 
er, kissing  him. 

On  that  Sunday  afternoon  the  boy  read 
the  story  again,  for  the  third  time,  all  to  him- 
self, and  he  made  a  solemn  resolution  to 
model  himself  on  the  hero.  He  felt  as 
though  the  vision  of  that  ideal  would  nerve 
him  for  the  battle  of  life. 

And  so  it  came  to  pass.  The  boy  went 
to  the  lawyer's  office  on  Monday,  and  he 
stayed  there  till  he  grew  to  be  a  man.  That 
story  lingered  fresh  in  his  memory,  and  its 


THE    STORY    OF    A    STORY 


49 


hero  was  as  the  young  man's  guardian 
angel. 

He  developed  true  manliness,  energy, 
character,  and  ability.  He  became  a  law- 
yer himself,  and  on  the  death  of  the  senior 
partner  of  the  firm  to  whose  office  he  had 
come  as  a  boy  he  was  taken  into  partner- 
ship, although  he  was  scarcely  of  age.  Out- 
side of  his  profession  he  broadened  also  and 
grew  in  stature.  At  a  time  of  trouble  he 
made  himself  the  mouth-piece  of  the  rail- 
road men,  whose  claims  he  knew  to  be  just, 
though  the  directors  of  the  company  refused 
to  accede  to  them.  To  profit  by  the  popu- 
larity thus  obtained  his  party  nominated 
him  for  the  Assembly.  By  the  advice  of  his 
partners  he  accepted  the  nomination,  and 
by  the  help  of  the  independent  voters  of 
his  district,  by  whom  he  was  known  and  re- 
spected, he  was  elected.  His  first  thought 
was  for  his  mother ;  he  wished  that  she  had 
lived  to  see  him  thus  honored  by  his  fellow- 
men  ;  he  knew  how  happy  and  how  proud 
it  would  have  made  her. 

The  boy  had  grown  to  be  a  man,  yet  he 
was  the  youngest  member  of  the  Assembly 


50  THE   STORY   OF   A   STORY 

that  year  ;  indeed,  he  was  hardly  old  enough 
to  vote.  When  he  came  to  clear  up  his 
room  before  going  to  Albany,  he  found  in 
the  bottom  of  a  drawer  in  his  desk  an  old, 
worn,  frayed  magazine  —  the  midsummer 
number  of  The  Metropolis  that  his  mother 
had  brought  home  for  him  from  the  parlor- 
car.  He  sat  down  and  read  the  story  again, 
perhaps  for  the  twentieth  time  ;  and  he  rec- 
ognized again  that  it  had  been  the  inspira- 
tion of  his  life.  Then  there  came  to  him  a 
desire  to  tell  the  author  all  that  the  story 
had  been  to  him,  how  it  had  moulded  his 
whole  life. 

The  boy  went  to  New  York  as  soon  as 
time  could  be  spared  from  the  new  duties  at 
Albany  and  inquired  for  the  author,  only  to 
find  that  he  had  died  suddenly  a  fortnight 
after  his  story  had  been  printed  in  the  mid- 
summer number  of  The  Metropolis. 

Then  the  boy,  a  boy  no  longer,  sat  down 
and  wrote  a  long  letter  to  the  author's  wid- 
ow; and  she  thrilled  with  pleasure  when 
she  heard  how  her  husband's  last  work  had 
been  as  a  lamp  to  a  man's  feet. 

(1890.) 


A   CAMEO   AND   A   PASTEL 


A  CAMEO  AND  A  PASTEL 


I. — THE    CAMEO. 
ROME,    A.  U.  C.    722. 

THE  dining-room  had  been  built  apart 
from  the  house.  It  stood  in  the  garden 
amid  box-trees  cut  into  threatening  shapes 
of  wild  beasts,  and  beside  a  cypress  clipped 
to  suggest  a  dark  green  serpent  coiling  it- 
self tightly  about  the  brown  trunk  of  the 
tree.  With  its  white  marble  walls  it  crowned 
the  brow  of  the  hill  that  here  sloped  away 
to  the  bank  of  the  placid  brook  below.  It 
was  open  only  to  the  north,  but  the  wester- 
ing sun  shone  through  its  windows,  and  left 
the  long  shadows  of  the  tall  poplars  athwart 
the  tessellated  pavement.  The  twelfth  hour 
of  the  day  was  near,  and  still  the  banquet 
was  prolonged. 


54  A   CAMEO   AND   A    PASTEL 

Upon  the  three  wooden  couches  which 
formed  three  sides  of  a  square  in  the  centre 
of  the  room  there  reclined  nine  Romans — 
for  the  giver  of  the  feast  had  borne  in  mind 
the  saying  of  Varro  that  those  invited  should 
never  be  more  in  num,ber  than  the  Muses 
nor  less  than  the  Graces.  Like  his  guests, 
the  host  had  removed  his  shoes  and  his  toga. 
He  wore  a  light  short-sleeved  tunic,  with 
the  two  broad  perpendicular  stripes  of  pur- 
ple which  denoted  a  knight.  His  face  was 
dignified  and  kindly.  His  manner  suggested 
that  he  was  entertaining  men  of  distinguished 
ability,  but  perhaps  of  inferior  rank.  He 
was  crowned  with  a  chaplet  of  dark  ivy,  not 
unbecoming  to  his  closely  cropped  head. 

The  guests  wore  wreaths  of  roses  upon 
their  oiled  locks,  most  of  them,  although  one, 
whose  white  tunic  bore  the  single  dark  stripe 
of  a  Senator,  had  preferred  the  crown  of  ivy 
leaves.  The  couches  whereon  they  reclined 
were  of  wood  thickly  incrusted  with  ivory, 
and  made  easier  by  many  cushions  covered 
with  light  silks.  The  guests  leaned  on  their 
left  elbows,  and  ate  with  their  right  hands 
only.  At  the  end  of  the  course  silent  serv- 


A   CAMEO   AND   A    PASTEL  55 

ants  brought  water  in  silver  bowls  and 
proffered  linen  napkins  that  the  fingers 
might  be  washed,  while  another  attendant 
wiped  the  low  wooden  table  with  a  thick 
cloth. 

In  the  open  space  before  the  table  and 
the  couches  other  slaves  were  casting  down 
saffron-dyed  sawdust,  that  it  might  absorb 
the  blood  which  lay  in  little  pools  upon  the 
pale  pavement.  There  the  gladiators  had 
been  fighting  but  a  moment  before,  to  enter- 
tain the  guests  at  the  banquet ;  and  having 
given  strong  proofs  of  their  skill  and  of  their 
courage,  they  had  been  dismissed,  and  were 
now  behind  the  house,  out  of  sight,  one  try- 
ing to  stanch  his  wounds,  the  other  stiff  in 
death  and  carried  by  his  comrades. 

"  This  is  a  brave  feast,  Gaius  Cilnius," 
said  the  guest  who  lay  above  the  host  on 
the  couch  at  the  right.  "  I  have  not  had 
such  good  entertainment  since  that  triumph 
of  Caesar  when  the  Amazons  contended  with 
the  lionesses." 

"The  Numidian  did  not  fight  ill,"  the 
host  admitted. 

"  I  never  saw  a  more  skilful  stroke  than 


56  A    CAMEO   AND   A    PASTEL 

that  with  which  he  got  under  the  guard  of 
the  Gaul,"  returned  the  guest  on  the  right, 
a  full-blooded,  thick-necked  man,  with  a  face 
hardened  by  exposure. 

"  He  had  as  much  strength  as  skill," 
added  one  of  those  who  were  reclining  on 
the  couch  on  the  left.  "  I  saw  his  sword 
come  out  at  the  back  of  the  Gaul." 

"  A  clean  thrust,  by  Jove  !"  the  first  speak- 
er rejoined ;  "  and  he  gave  it  under  dis- 
advantage also,  for  the  Gaul  had  already 
cut  off  two  of  the  fingers  of  his  right 
hand." 

"  Then  it  was  a  feat  indeed  !"  said  a  young 
man  on  the  couch  with  the  Senator ;  "  a  feat 
worthy  of  commemoration  in  verse.  And 
we  have  three  poets  here  now.  Which  of 
you  will  immortalize  the  gladiator  ?" 

"  Publius  Vergilius  there,"  the  ivy-crowned 
Senator  remarked,  "  is  ever  at  work  on  his 
epic.  He  carries  it  always  on  his  mind,  for 
he  has  scarce  said  a  word  to  us  to-night, 
from  the  egg  to  the  apples." 

The  grave-visaged.man  whom  he  addressed 
smiled  tolerantly,  and  turning  to  the  guest 
at  his  side,  he  said,  "  Such  a  subject  suits 


A   CAMEO   AND   A   PASTEL  57 

rather  the  satire  than  the  epic — eh,  Quintus 
Horatius  ?" 

"There  are  those  who  would  write  an 
epic  in  twenty-four  books  on  the  life  and 
adventures  and  death  of  a  mouse,"  re- 
sponded the  guest  thus  invoked.  "  This 
afternoon  at  the  bath,  while  I  was  anxious 
for  my  game  of  ball,  there  came  a  fellow 
who  forced  me  to  hear  a  long  poem  he  had 
written  yesterday  while  standing  on  one 
foot !" 

"  It  is  not  enough  to  find  a  good  subject," 
said  the  third  poet,  who  was  a  young  man 
with  a  faded  expression ;  "  we  must  also 
make  sure  of  a  publisher  whose  scribes  will 
not  betray  us  by  their  carelessness.  My  last 
elegy  was  sent  forth  with  a  thousand  errors 
that  the  dullest  slave  should  not  have  been 
allowed  to  make." 

"  I  know  nothing  of  scribes,  Sextus  Aure- 
lius,"  the  thick- necked  man  declared;  "I 
like  the  sword  and  the  spear  more  than  the 
style.  But  it  is  indisputable  that  we  have 
no  such  slaves  as  we  used  to  have  in  the 
old  days.  The  knaves  are  careless  now 
and  insolent.  If  I  were  a  poet,  and  they 


58  A   CAMEO   AND   A    PASTEL 

mangled  my  verses,  I  would  have  the  blun- 
dering rascals  sent  to  frigid  Mcesia ;  they 
would  not  make  the  same  mistake  twice." 

"  There  are  punishments  nearer  at  hand," 
said  the  Senator,  "  and  swifter.  When  the 
cook  of  Vedius  Pollio  three  times  failed  to 
stew  the  lampreys  to  his  master's  taste,  the 
fellow  was  thrown  into  the  fish-pond,  and  I 
doubt  not  that  the  lampreys  found  him  to 
their  taste." 

"  There  is  no  need  thus  to  punish  your 
tricliniarch,  Gaius  Cilnius,"  declared  the 
poet  with  the  serious  face,  as  he  helped 
himself  from  the  new  dish  the  attendant 
then  presented.  "  For  here  is  a  feast  or- 
dered to  perfection.  The  slave  is  worthy 
of  his  master— is  he  not,Quintus  Horatius  ?" 

"  By  Bacchus,"  replied  the  poet  thus  ad- 
dressed, "  he  understands  his  art  as  well  as 
a  Greek  rhetorician  understands  the  art  of 
speech.  He  persuades  us  although  we  have 
no  appetite.  But  the  credit  for  his  labors  is 
due  to  the  friend  who  chose  him." 

"  And  the  fellow  is  not  to  be  praised  for 
this  beaker  of  glass,  red  as  the  ruby  and 
as  cunningly  carved,''  the  third  poet  inter- 


A   CAMEO   AND   A    PASTEL  59 

posed ;  "  nor  for  this  silver  cup,"  he  added, 
taking  the  vessel  from  the  hand  of  an  at- 
tendant, who  filled  it  to  the  brim  with 
Falernian.  "  Is  this  the  very  goblet  in 
which  Cleopatra  dissolved  her  pearl,  when 
she  drank  to  the  health  of  Antony  ?" 

The  host  smiled,  and  responded,  "  You 
have  hit  the  mark  with  a  chance  arrow, 
Sextus  Aurelius.  That  is  indeed  the  goblet 
of  Cleopatra.  It  was  sent  to  me  from  Alex- 
andria by  the  friend  who  bought  me  also 
the  beakers  of  red  glass." 

The  chief  course  of  the  dinner  was  now 
attained,  and  the  slaves  removed  the  tables 
from  the  room.  The  guests  washed  their 
hands  again.  Then  there  was  silence  for  a 
little  space,  out  of  respect  to  the  gods, 
while  the  salted  meal  was  offered  on  the 
family  altar,  and  while  the  libations  of  wine 
were  poured  solemnly  upon  the  hearth  to 
the  sound  of  stately  music. 

When  this  ceremony  had  been  duly  per- 
formed, the  second  tables  were  brought  in, 
with  cakes  of  many  kinds  and  all  manner  of 
fruits,  while  fresh  snow  was  packed  about 
the  vessels  containing  the  wine. 


60  A   CAMEO   AND   A    PASTEL 

While  the  guests  were  enjoying  the  lighter 
dishes  with  which  the  banquet  came  to  an 
end,  a  livelier  strain  of  music  swelled  forth, 
as  though  some  new  entertainment  was 
about  to  be  presented. 

"  That  is  a  Gaditanian  air,  if  I  mistake 
not,"  said  the  poet  who  had  been  addressed 
as  Sextus  Aurelius. 

"  Have  you  a  dancer  to  show  us  ?"  asked 
the  thick-necked  man,  with  a  certain  sug- 
gestion of  eagerness  in  his  voice. 

"  Two,"  the  host  responded. 

"  Trust  Gaius  Cilnius  to  give  us  good 
measure,"  interjected  one  of  the  other 
poets. 

"  There  are  two  Gaditanian  girls,  twin 
sisters,  of  whom  report  speaks  favorably," 
the  Senator  remarked.  "  It  is  rumored 
that  they  have  a  perfect  mastery  of  the 
strange  dances  of  their  own  country.  Even 
Caesar  commended  them  when  they  danced 
before  him.  Are  these  they  ?" 

"  They  are  the  same,"  answered  the  host, 
modestly;  "two  Gaditanian  slave  girls.  I 
have  never  seen  them,  but  I  thought  it 
might  interest  you  to  compare  their  art  with 


A    CAMEO   AND    A    PASTEL  6l 

that  of  the  dancers  we  have  beheld  so  often 
in  Rome." 

"  Nothing  so  helps  digestion  as  to  end  a 
dinner  with  a  dance,"  said  Quintus  Hora- 
tius,  with  a  smile  of  humorous  anticipation. 

As  the  guests  settled  back  on  the  couches 
to  behold  the  sport  at  their  ease,  the  host 
gave  a  signal,  and  the  music  swelled  out 
again,  with  strange,  broken  rhythms. 

Suddenly  there  sprang  into  the  open 
space  before  the  men  two  dark-eyed  girls, 
one  from  each  side  of  the  broad  portal. 
They  met  in  the  centre  of  the  space,  and 
grasped  each  other  by  the  right  hand  and 
swung  around,  and  then,  as  the  music  ab- 
ruptly stopped,  they  stood  still  before  the 
spectators,  poised,  each  on  one  foot,  in  a 
graceful  and  captivating  attitude.  They 
were  beautiful  girls,  both  of  them,  scarce 
sixteen,  lithe,  slender,  sinewy,  with  bronzed 
skins  and  thick  dark  hair.  Their  flowing 
garments,  almost  transparent,  clung  to  their 
persons,  falling  in  sweeping  folds,  but  never 
reaching  the  saffron -dyed  sawdust  that 
covered  the  pale  pavement. 

Then,  as  the  music  struck  up  again,  they 


62  A    CAMEO   AND   A    PASTEL 

began  to  dance,  swaying  in  time,  retreating 
one  from  the  other,  advancing  with  provo- 
cation, keeping  step  faultlessly  to  the  tune, 
and  bending  their  bodies  in  unison  with  the 
enervating  rhythm.  A  heightened  color 
came  into  the  cheek  of  the  thick-necked 
guest,  and  the  eyes  of  the  Senator  took  on 
a  deeper  glow. 

Decorous  at  first,  the  sisters  gained  free- 
dom as  the  dance  went  on,  and  with  the 
quickening  music  they  added  fervor  to  their 
pantomime.  So  potent  was  the  charm  of 
their  motions  that  not  a  word  was  spoken, 
while  the  dance  rose  to  its  climax  with  gest- 
ures as  significant  as  they  were  graceful. 
After  a  while  the  music  slackened,  and  the 
dance  became  more  languorous,  as  though 
the  girls  were  caught  up  in  a  dream.  Then, 
with  a  sharp  return  of  the  former  rapidity, 
the  dancers  flashed  across  the  slippery  floor 
again  and  were  gone. 

The  Senator  sank  back  on  the  couch, 
while  the  poets  and  the  other  guests  ap- 
plauded. Then,  while  the  servant  whose 
duty  it  was  threw  perfumes  over  the  few 
embers  on  the  hearth,  the  diners  made 


A    CAMEO   AND   A    PASTEL  63 

ready  for  the  symposium  by  casting  dice  to 
discover  who  should  be  king  of  the  feast. 

When  the  dancers  withdrew,  night  was 
about  to  fall.  From  the  hut  of  a  slave  hid- 
den in  the  hollow  of  the  hill  before  the 
opening  at  the  end  of  the  dining-room  a  thin 
spiral  of  blue  smoke  curled  softly  upward  in 
the  darkening  twilight,  made  visible  by  a 
final  shaft  of  the  expiring  sunset. 


II.  —  THE   PASTEL. 
NEW   YORK,  A.D.   1892. 

Against  the  wall  at  the  farther  end  of 
the  studio  hung  a  huge  sheet,  broad  enough 
to  have  been  taken  from  the  great  bed  of 
Ware.  It  was  bleached  by  the  hard  glare 
of  the  limelight  directed  from  the  gallery  at 
the  back  of  the  painter's  workshop  over  the 
doorway  leading  to  his  smaller  studio,  where 
the  supper  was  already  set  out.  Almost 
touching  the  pendent  drapery,  but  a  little  to 
the  left,  were  four  chairs  for  the  musicians 
who  were  to  accompany  the  Spanish  woman. 


64  A   CAMEO   AND  A   PASTEL 

For  the  gyrations  of  the  dancer  a  hollow 
semicircle  of  floor  space  had  been  left  in 
front  of  the  sheet,  and  bent  rows  of  folding- 
chairs filled  the  rest  of  the  long  room.  The 
carved  coffers  had  been  pushed  back  against 
the  side  walls  under  the  worn  tapestries  and 
the  tarnished  embroidery  of  old  altar-cloths. 
Vessels  of  brass,  of  copper,  of  baked  clay, 
of  delft,  of  twisted  glass,  stood  on  the  larger 
cabinets.  A  panoply  of  arms,  wherein  could 
be  seen  a  creese,  a  yataghan,  an  old  flint- 
lock musket,  a  Springfield  rifle,  a  bowie- 
knife,  and  two  Arapaho  arrows,  was  set  on 
the  wall  over  against  a  portrait  of  the  owner 
of  the  studio,  in  Japanese  costume,  lovingly 
painted  by  a  former  pupil.  There  were 
other  pictures  here  and  there  out  of  the 
way ;  and  thrust  in  a  corner  on  an  easel, 
carefully  hidden  by  a  shabby  velvet  robe, 
was  the  unfinished  portrait  of  one  of  the 
ladies  who  were  giving  the  entertainment. 
Pendent  from  the  ceiling  by  a  cord  was  a 
stuffed  sea-gull  with  outstretched  wings, 
swaying  softly  to  and  fro  as  the  floor  trem- 
bled under  the  footsteps  of  the  arriving 
guests. 


A    CAMEO   AND   A    PASTEL  65 

It  was  nearly  midnight,  and  for  half  an 
hour  or  more  the  guests  had  been  gathering, 
greeting  one  another,  and  settling  down  in 
little  groups,  until  now  the  studio  was  be- 
ginning to  be  crowded,  and  the  late-comers 
found  it  hard  to  place  themselves.  Some 
of  those  first  to  arrive  had  come  leisurely 
from  betarded  dinners,  and  some  of  those 
last  to  arrive  had  come  hurriedly  from  the 
opera,  hastening  away  before  the  tenor  had 
sung  his  death -song.  They  were  all  well 
dressed,  and  they  all  seemed  gay  and  eager 
for  amusement,  with  an  air  as  of  people  out 
in  expectation  of  an  unconventional  enter- 
tainment. They  were  fairly  representative 
of  the  well-to-do  dwellers  in  a  great  city. 
Among  them  were  many  men  and  women 
of  fashion,  some  of  them  having  no  other 
claim  to  distinction  than  the  accident  of 
their  social  position,  and  some  of  them 
leaders  of  society  not  only,  but  also  in  philan- 
thropy and  in  citizenship.  There  were  men 
of  letters,  two  or  three  essayists,  three  or 
four  novelists,  and  a  poet  or  two.  There 
were  artists,  some  of  them  friends  of  the 
painter  in  whose  studio  the  dance  was  to 
s 


66  A   CAMEO    AND   A    PASTEL 

take  place.  There  was  a  clever  young  actor, 
with  his  pretty  young  wife.  There  were 
half  a  dozen  statesmen — two  of  them  high 
in  the  councils  of  the  nation — who  had 
come  on  from  Washington  specially  to  be 
present  at  the  affair.  There  were  pretty 
women  a  plenty,  with  diamonds  agleam  on 
their  bosoms  and  in  their  hair.  There  was 
the  thin  young  lady  who  had  aroused  pub- 
lic opinion  against  the  dirty  streets  of  the 
city ;  there  was  the  young  married  woman 
who  took  time  from  society  to  do  her  duty 
as  head  of  a  school  for  the  training  of 
nurses;  there  was  the  plump  widow  who 
wrote  clever  articles  on  music  and  the 
drama;  and  there  was  the  beautiful  dark 
woman  who  had  just  been  forced  to  seek 
a  divorce  from  a  brutal  nobleman  unable  to 
appreciate  her.  There  were  young  women 
and  old  who  thought  they  had  done  their 
whole  duty  by  the  world. when  they  looked 
charming  and  smiled  at  the  compliments 
paid  to  them. 

Above  the  chatter  of  many  tongues  could 
be  heard  the  clear  voice  of  one  of  the  men 
from  Washington,  who  had  once  been  an 


A   CAMEO    AND    A    PASTEL  67 

attache  in  Madrid.  "Why  is  she  so  late, 
this  Andalusian  caperer?" 

"She  doesn't  finish  at  the  theatre  till 
nearly  eleven,"  said  the  handsome  woman 
to  whom  he  had  spoken  ;  "  but  she  promised 
to  dance  as  little  as  she  could  this  evening 
and  to  take  no  encores,  so  as  to  save  herself 
fresh  for  us." 

A  novelist  who  had  just  arrived  from  Italy 
leaned  over  and  asked  the  young  lady  by 
his  side,  "  It's  a  new  act,  isn't  it,  this  hav- 
ing a  dancer  come  here  at  midnight  to  give 
a  private  performance  ?" 

"  She's  done  it  two  or  three  times  for  us 
this  winter,"  the  young  lady  answered. 
"You  know  the  theatre  where  she  appears 
is  so  common  that  we  can't  go  there ;  and 
so,  you  see,  if  she  didn't  come  to  a  studio 
now  and  then,  why,  nobody  would  see  her." 

Then  there  was  a  sudden  parting  of  the 
little  group  of  men  gathered  about  one  of 
the  hostesses  near  the  door.  Four  musi- 
cians entered  and  took  the  seats  reserved  for 
them.  They  were  swarthy  and  dark-eyed  ; 
one  of  them  was  a  fine-looking  fellow  with 
a  shrewd  smile  hovering  about  his  sensual 


68  A   CAMEO   AND   A    PASTEL 

mouth.  He  was  the  leader,  and  played  the 
guitar ;  his  companions  had,  one  a  man- 
dolin, and  two  of  them  violins.  With  the 
appearance  of  the  musicians  there  was  an 
instant  stir  all  over  the  studio,  and  people 
settled  into  their  places  and  made  room  for 
one  another,  and  turned  their  attention  to 
the  coming  entertainment.  The  young  men 
who  had  been  standing  inside  the  reserved 
semicircle,  bending  over  and  chatting  with 
the  ladies  on  the  front  row,  now  squatted 
on  the  floor  and  sat  cross-legged. 

The  hush  of  expectancy  was  broken  as 
the  dancer  entered,  walking  with  a  free  and 
feline  tread.  Amid  loud  applause,  clapping 
of  hands,  and  tapping  of  fan  sticks,  she  took 
the  seat  that  had  been  set  for  her  in  the 
centre  of  the  open  space,  close  to  the  sheet, 
against  which  her  black  shadow  was  cut  out 
boldly  by  the  limelight  that  now  bright- 
ened. She  sat  still  for  a  few  seconds,  until 
the  musicians  struck  up  a  wailing  and  riot- 
ous rhythm.  She  threw  back  her  scarf  and 
arose  from  her  chair.  The  music  swelled 
languorously  and  louder,  and  then  she  began 
to  dance,  coming  forward  a  little,  until  by 


f*THE  MUSIC  SWELLED,  AND  SHE   BEGAN   TO   DANCE 


A   CAMEO   AND   A    PASTEL  69 

chance  her  shadow  was  under  the  shadow 
of  the  bird  with  outstretched  wings. 

She  was  a  daringly  handsome  woman,  of 
superb  health,  of  intense  vitality,  of  unfail- 
ing grace,  of  undeniable  charm — due  not 
only  to  the  dark  deep  eyes,  made  darker 
and  deeper  by  kohl  lines  below  and  above, 
and  not  only  to  the  full  red  lips  and  the 
dazzling  white  teeth  they  revealed  when 
they  parted;  not  only  to  the  flash  of  the 
glance  even,  nor  to  the  sudden  delight  of 
the  smile  ;  but  rather  to  some  intangible, 
invisible,  indisputable  potency  of  sex  which 
lent  irresistible  fascination  to  irregular  feat- 
ures. In  repose  the  face  was  heavy  and 
sad ;  but  a  smile  transfigured  it  almost  be- 
yond recognition.  It  was  a  Spanish  face, 
no  doubt,  but  with  more  than  a  hint  of  the 
gypsy  or  of  the  Moor.  The  neck  and  arms, 
more  decorously  covered  than  those  of  most 
of  the  ladies  who  were  looking  on,  were 
browned,  and  the  thick  fingers  of  both 
hands  were  encased  with  a  dozen  diamond 
rings.  Her  dress,  which  fell  a  little  below 
the  knee,  was  of  yellow  satin,  decked  with 
an  abundance  of  black  lace.  She  wore  a 


70  A    CAMEO    AND    A    PASTEL 

rose  in  the  heavy  braids  of  her  midnight 
hair. 

Her  dance  was  like  her  beauty,  irregular 
and  irresistible.  It  was  Spanish  in  essence, 
perhaps  gypsy  at  times,  with  haunting  mem- 
ories of  the  Orient.  It  began  with  a  Moor- 
ish swaying  of  the  body  and  a  bold  swing 
of  the  hips,  preceding  a  few  simple  steps 
to  the  right  and  to  the  left,  a  few  bending 
turns,  now  one  way  and  now  the  other,  tak- 
en with  easy  flexibility,  in  strict  time  to  the 
lilt  of  the  tune  the  musicians  kept  playing. 
Often  the  suppleness  of  the  torso  was  as 
important  as  the  swiftness  of  the  feet.  It 
was  a  strange  and  startling  performance, 
and  its  fascination  was  as  strange  as  the 
dancer  herself.  As  a  dance  it  was  volupt- 
uous, and  yet  decent ;  full  of  suggestion  to 
some,  and  yet  devoid  of  offence  to  all  who 
were  ignorant  as  to  the  symbolic  possibilities 
of  primitive  pantomime.  As  it  went  on,  the 
ladies  watched  it  with  eager  enjoyment,  fol- 
lowing every  movement  of  arm,  of  body,  and 
of  foot.  The  men  leaned  forward  with  a 
tenser  interest,  with  a  gaze  that  never  re- 
laxed, and  sometimes  with  a  tightened 


A    CAMEO    AND   A    PASTEL  71 

breathing.  At  any  unexpected  twist  of 
the  dancer's  body  or  unusually  artful  feat 
there  were  incipient  cheers  and  loud  cries 
of  "  Olle  !" 

At  last  the  music  died  away  and  the  dan- 
cing ceased.  She  bowed  again  and  again  as 
the  plaudits  rang  out,  accepting  them  with 
a  hesitancy  that  seemed  almost  shy.  Then 
she  sat  down,  breathless  and  hot.  Two  or 
three  of  the  men  who  had  been  sitting  on 
the  floor  on  the  front  line  of  spectators  got 
on  their  feet  and  went  forward  with  compli- 
ments, which  she  received  with  purely  pro- 
fessional gratitude.  She  accepted  congrat- 
ulations on  her  skill  with  a  heartiness  which 
was  perhaps  perfunctory.  In  repose  the  ex- 
pression of  her  countenance  was  almost 
sombre,  until  it  was  illuminated  by  her 
swift  smile. 

The  guests  who  had  seen  her  before 
compared  this  performance  with  those  pre- 
ceding. One  young  man  informed  a  young 
girl  that  she  did  not  dance  as  freely  as  she 
used.  "  You  see,  some  fellow  told  her  she 
had  heart-disease,  so  she  spares  herself  now. 
I  always  sing  out  *  Olle !'  as  loud  as  I  can, 


72  A    CAMEO   AND   A    PASTEL 

and  as  often  too,  to  try  and  get  her  excited 
a  little  and  to  keep  her  up  to  her  work." 

"  I  think  some  of  the  married  women 
might  go  up  and  talk  to  her,"  said  the 
young  lady ;  "  she  looks  so  timid  I  feel  al- 
most as  if  I  ought  to  get  presented  to  her, 
so  as  to  encourage  her  a  little." 

Side  by  side  at  the  rear  of  the  studio, 
standing  clear  of  the  last  row  of  chairs, 
were  a  poet  and  a  novelist. 

"  Do  you  suppose  she  really  cares  for  the 
applause  and  the  compliments,"  asked  the 
novelist,  "or  is  that  brilliant  smile  of  hers 
part  of  the  performance  ?" 

"  I  don't  know,"  the  poet  responded. 
"  She  seems  to  take  to  it  kindly.  Do  you 
see  how  she  turns  again  and  again  to  that 
mandolin  -  player  at  her  right,  and  how  he 
looks  at  her  with  a  calm  air  of  proprietor- 
ship ?" 

"Oh  yes,"  the  novelist  returned;  "they 
say  he's  her  husband— but  then  they  will 
say  anything." 

Then  the  music  started  again,  a  low, 
throbbing,  pathetic  air  this  time,  and  as 
some  of  the  audience  recognized  it,  there 


A   CAMEO   AND   A    PASTEL  73 

was  an  outbreak  of  applause.  The  Span- 
iard arose  and  put  on  a  black  felt  hat,  which 
she  pulled  down  over  her  eyebrows,  and  she 
reached  down  and  picked  up  a  long  cane  or 
pilgrim's  staff.  The  dancer  was  now  to  ap- 
pear as  a  singer.  The  song  was  simple  and 
dramatic ;  and  the  singing  was  varied  by 
much  pantomime,  by  an  attempt  to  express 
its  emotion  histrionically,  by  an  obvious 
theatric  effort.  The  end  of  every  stanza 
brought  an  odd  little  chorus,  to  the  notes  of 
which  the  performer  walked  in  time  with  an 
indescribable  swagger,  irredeemably  com- 
mon, but  never  vulgar  in  the  lower  sense  of 
the  word.  At  the  end  of  the  final  stanza 
the  music  was  prolonged,  and  the  walk 
around  became  a  dance,  like  the  first  and 
yet  unlike  it,  not  the  same  and  yet  a  va- 
riation of  the  same  theme.  It  had  more 
freedom  than  its  predecessor  and  a  wilder 
abandon,  as  if  the  gypsy  or  the  Moor  was 
overpowering  the  Spaniard.  As  it  went  on 
there  were  frequent  clappings  of  hands  and 
shouts  of  "  Olle,"  as  though  the  spectators 
also  were  waking  up. 

The  young  man  who  had  been  talking  to 


74  A   CAMEO   AND   A   PASTEL 

the  young  lady  found  himself  by  the  side  of 
the  visitor  from  Washington  who  had  once 
been  an  attache  at  Madrid. 

"I  suppose  you  have  seen  better  than 
this  in  Spain  ?"  he  asked,  doubtfully. 

"  I  have  seen  much  the  same  thing,"  was 
the  answer.  "  Nothing  more  graceful ;  noth- 
ing more  fascinating." 

"  Ah,  but  you  just  wait  till  after  supper," 
cried  the  young  man,  enthusiastically. 

The  poet  overheard  this,  and  moved  away. 
He  delighted  in  the  light  and  the  color  of 
the  thing,  in  its  movement  and  rhythm,  in 
the  aroma  of  luxury,  in  the  unconvention- 
ality  of  the  entertainment;  but  his  con- 
science smote  him. 

"Do  you  see  the  shadow  of  that  bird," 
asked  the  novelist,  "descending  on  the 
dancer  like  a  spirit  of  purity  ?  And  if  you 
will  look  over  here  at  the  right  of  the  dra- 
pery, you  can  catch  sight  of  the  death-mask 
of  Shakespeare  looking  on  at  these  revels* 
with  sightless  eyes  as  if  he  enjoyed  them. 

"  I  feel  like  a  barbarian  of  the  lower  em- 
pire," the  poet  responded.  "I  shall  be 
ready  soon  for  the  gladiators,  and  I  don't 


A    CAiMEO    AND    A    PASTEL  75 

doubt  I  should  hesitate  whether  to  turn  my 
thumb  down  or  not." 

The  music  ceased  suddenly,  and  the 
dancer,  after  bowing  once  and  again, 
dropped  into  her  chair,  visibly  panting. 
Two  ladies  went  forward  together  to  ex- 
press their  pleasure  at  her  performance. 
The  young  man  who  accompanied  them 
borrowed  one  of  their  fans,  and  sinking  on 
his  knees  by  the  side  of  the  dancer,  he  be- 
gan to  fan  her. 

(1892.) 


TWO   LETTERS 


TWO  LETTERS 


FROM  THE  "  GOTHAM  GAZETTE     OF  APRIL  21. 
FROM  AN   OCCASIONAL  CORRESPONDENT. 

GEORGETOWN,  DEMERARA,  April i. 

I  ARRIVED  here  last  Sunday,  safe  and 
sound,  and  I  expect  to  be  able  to  proceed 
shortly  to  the  scene  of  the  boundary  dis- 
pute between  England  and  Venezuela.  I 
have  heard  of  a  boat  sailing  next  week  for 
the  mouth  of  the  Orinoco,  on  which  I  hope 
to  secure  a  passage.  Although  there  has 
been  a  fortnight  or  so  of  pleasant  weather, 
the  rainy  reason  is  not  yet  over,  and  travel- 
ling is  not  altogether  as  easy  or  as  pleasant 
as  it  might  be. 

I  cannot  say  that  I  regret  the  delay,  as 
it  has  enabled  me  to  make  acquaintance 


8o  TWO    LETTERS 

here  with  a  few  charming  people,  from 
whom  I  expect  to  take  useful  letters  when 
I  go  on  my  journey. 

For  another  reason  also  I  am  not  dissat- 
isfied that  I  have  been  forced  to  remain  in 
this  hospitable  town.  The  delay  has  given 
me  an  opportunity  to  make  the  acquaintance 
of  Mr.  Walter  Stead,  an  American  citizen  of 
English  birth,  and  a  man  of  singular  cour- 
age and  nobility  of  character.  It  has  en- 
abled me  also  to  secure  from  Mr.  Stead's 
own  mouth  a  full  and  exact  account  of  the 
extraordinary  attack  recently  made  upon 
him  in  the  interior,  up  the  Essequibo  River. 
Although  Mr.  Stead,  like  other  men  of  posi- 
tive convictions  and  unhesitating  boldness, 
has  not  a  few  enemies  here,  I  find  that  there 
is  a  general  agreement  of  opinion  that  the 
outrage  on  him  should  be  carefully  investi- 
gated, and  that  condign  punishment  should 
be  meted  out  to  the  survivors  of  the  strange 
people  against  whom  he  has  had  to  defend 
himself.  That  any  portion  of  the  treasure 
he  risked  his  life  to  protect  can  now  be  re- 
covered is  extremely  doubtful. 

Mr.  Stead  came  to  British  Guiana  as  a 


TWO   LETTERS  8 1 

representative  of  the  Essequibo  Gold  Com- 
pany, an  American  organization,  of  which 
Mr.  Samuel  Sargent  is  president.  Although 
the  mines  have  never  received  adequate  at- 
tention, it  has  been  known  for  centuries 
that  there  was  gold  in  abundance  in  the 
mountains  of  Guiana. 

It  was  in  this  country  that  Sir  Walter  Ra- 
leigh placed  his  El  Dorado,  following  in 
this  the  belief  of  the  earlier  Spaniards  ;  and 
when  Choiseul  sent  out  his  12,000  colonists 
here  in  1763,  it  was  hoped  that  they  would 
be  able  to  develop  the  gold  mines ;  but  so 
great  was  the  mortality  consequent  on  bad 
management  that  within  five  years  after  the 
arrival  of  this  colony  barely  a  thousand  sur- 
vived. The  insalubrity  of  the  climate  has 
been  partly  to  blame  for  this  neglect  of  the 
golden  treasure  which  lies  almost  within 
man's  grasp.  And  at  one  time  the  fear  of 
the  Indians  was  also  a  deterrent.  As  is 
well  known,  the  Caribs  were  cannibals  ;  now 
they  have  mostly  died  out.  The  Araucans 
are  natives  of  high  intelligence  and  unusual 
courage.  Not  a  few  of  the  bush  tribes  re- 
tain flitting  traces  of  their  former  Christian- 


82  TWO    LETTERS 

ity,  which  now  commingles  with  their  de- 
graded superstitions.  In  the  mountains  at 
the  head  of  the  Essequibo  there  has  been 
rumored  to  be  a  tribe  of  White  Indians,  who 
were  supposed  to  be  the  last  of  the  ancient 
Peruvians,  living  to-day  as  their  ancestors 
lived  under  the  Incas  when  the  Spaniards 
conquered  the  country.  That  such  a  tribe 
still  exists  has  hitherto  been  but  a  doubtful 
rumor,  as  no  white  man  had  ever  succeeded 
in  penetrating  into  their  country.  But  to- 
day, although  we  know  little  more  about 
them,  we  know  at  least  that  such  a  tribe 
does  exist.  Mr.  Walter  Stead  has  good  rea- 
son to  remember  them,  and  it  is  the  tale  of 
his  misadventures  in  their  country  that  I 
shall  try  to  tell  in  this  letter,  regretting  only 
that  my  feeble  pen  cannot  reproduce  ade- 
quately the  stirring  accents  of  Mr.  Stead's 
story  as  I  heard  it  from  his  own  lips. 

I  must  begin  by  saying  that  although  it 
has  been  well  known  for  centuries  that  there 
was  abundant  gold  in  the  mountains  where 
the  many  rivers  which  traverse  Guiana  have 
their  source,  hitherto  the  attempts  to  get  at 
it  have  been  spasmodic  and  more  or  less 


TWO    LETTERS  83 

unsatisfactory.  In  the  upper  waters  of  the 
Caroni,  in  Venezuela,  and  at  Arataya,  in 
Dutch  Guiana,  the  prospector  has  been  fair- 
ly successful,  and  many  a  bag  of  golden 
dust  has  rewarded  his  enterprise.  But  it 
was  not  until  a  strong  syndicate  of  Ameri- 
cans, headed  by  Mr.  Samuel  Sargent,  organ- 
ized the  Essequibo  Gold  Company  that  any 
serious  endeavor  was  made  to  wrest  the 
precious  metal  from  the  heart  of  the  Sierra 
Acarai  Mountains. 

The  Essequibo  Gold  Company,  supported 
by  abundant  capital,  was  able  to  make  a 
careful  survey  of  the  situation.  Its  agents 
skilfully  prospected  throughout  the  length 
and  breadth  of  British  Guiana.  The  re- 
ports they  sent  home  were  compared,  and 
the  specimens  of  ore  they  forwarded  were 
assayed  ;  and  the  consensus  of  expert  opin- 
ion was  to  the  effect  that  it  would  be  best 
to  begin  operations  almost  at  the  head  of 
the  Essequibo  water-shed,  between  the  Zi- 
bingatzako  Pass  and  Mount  Turako.  Two 
years  ago  a  body  of  experienced  Californian 
miners  was  got  together  and  despatched  to 
Demerara,  whence  the  men,  with  their  tools, 


84  TWO   LETTERS 

were  sent  up  the  Essequibo  as  far  as  the 
King  William  IV.  Cataract.  Hence  they 
had  still  to  push  their  way  into  the  tropical 
wilderness  nearly  a  hundred  miles  farther, 
through  the  territory  of  the  friendly  tribe  of 
the  Taruma  Indians. 

For  now  eighteen  months  these  resolute 
Americans  have  been  hard  at  work  digging 
gold  from  the  flanks  of  the  Sierra  Acarai. 
It  has  hitherto  been  impossible  to  provide 
these  sturdy  miners  with  the  improved  ma- 
chinery to  which  they  have  been  accus- 
tomed. Hydraulic  mining,  for  example,  has 
not  yet  been  attempted.  Although  the  en- 
terprise has  passed  the  experimental  stage, 
the  works  are  still  of  the  most  primitive 
character.  Yet  the  results  have  been  very 
encouraging,  and  the  yield  of  gold  is  stead- 
ily increasing.  The  facilities  of  approach 
have  been  improved,  although  they  are  still 
wholly  inadequate.  A  monthly  messenger 
descends  from  the  miners  to  Demerara  ;  the 
products  of  the  washings  come  down  every 
quarter;  and  supplies  and  reinforcements 
are  sent  up  from  the  coast  at  least  twice  a 
year.  In  the  organization  of  these  means 


TWO    LETTERS  85 

of  communication  Mr.  Stead  has  been  in- 
valuable. For  a  year  he  has  been  here, 
going  to  and  fro,  acquainting  himself  with 
every  detail  of  the  work,  and  devising  im- 
proved methods  for  its  accomplishment. 
And  it  was  in  pursuance  of  this  duty  that 
he  met  with  misfortune,  and  was  forced  to 
fight  for  his  life. 

Before  setting  forth  the  details  of  his 
brave  struggle — one  man  against  many — I 
ought,  perhaps,  to  try  to  set  before  you  the 
man  himself.  At  first  sight  he  does  not 
seem  to  be  cast  in  heroic  mould.  He  is 
shorter  than,  the  average,  and  his  figure  is 
slim  rather  than  sturdy.  But,  slight  as  he 
is,  he  is  wiry  and  tough ;  and  his  meagre 
form  sheathes  a  soul  as  noble  as  any  in  the 
breast  of  a  Crusader  of  old.  Although  Mr. 
Stead  is  not  yet  forty,  his  hair,  a  rich  bronze, 
is  already  beginning  to  be  streaked  with 
gray,  and  the  deep  lines  on  his  thin  face  tell 
the  same  tale  of  hard  battling  with  the  vi- 
cissitudes of  life.  His  eyes  are  restless  and 
yet  piercing.  His  expression  is  self-reliant ; 
one  does  not  hesitate  to  say  at  first  sight, 
"  Here  is  a  shrewd  man,  able  to  take  care 


86  TWO   LETTERS 

of  himself."  And  when  occasion  serves,  Mr. 
Stead  is  able  to  take  care  of  himself,  as  I 
shall  show. 

Mr.  Stead  reached  the  mines  some  two 
months  ago,  bearing  letters  and  instructions. 
The  superintendent  of  the  company's  works 
there  was  beginning  to  get  a  little  uneasy 
about  the  accumulated  gold,  which  was  in- 
creasing with  unexpected  rapidity,  and  yet 
he  was  not  able  to  send  down  a  detachment 
of  men  to  guard  the  treasure  to  the  coast. 
There  were  rumors  of  uneasiness  among  the 
surviving  Caribs,  perhaps  the  most  danger- 
ous of  the  Indian  tribes,  and  a  friendly  Ta- 
ruma  had  come  into  the  camp  with  a  strange 
story  about  some  marauding  expedition  of 
the  alleged  tribe  of  White  Indians,  whose 
possible  identity  with  the  surviving  people 
of  the  Incas  I  have  already  recorded.  That 
such  a  tribe  even  existed  has  hitherto  been 
doubtful,  and  the  superintendent,  although 
he  was  not  a  little  alarmed  by  the  reports, 
which  came  to  him  from  two  or  three  sources, 
was  not  at  all  convinced  either  that  these 
Inca  Indians  were  on  the  war-path,  or  even 
that  there  was  any  such  tribe.  Neverthe- 


TWO    LETTERS  87 

less,  when  the  time  came  for  Mr.  Stead's  de- 
parture, and  he  offered  to  bear  down  to  the 
coast  as  much  gold-dust  as  he  could  carry 
in  a  belt  around  his  waist,  the  superintend- 
ent accepted  his  proposal  gladly.  Although 
spare,  as  I  have  said,  Mr.  Stead  is  a  man  of 
unusual  strength,  and  he  was  able  to  bestow 
on  his  person  about  forty  pounds'  weight  of 
gold,  worth  approximately  ten  thousand  dol- 
lars. The  flat  ingots  of  the  precious  metal 
were  sewed  into  a  broad  belt  or  jacket,  girt 
tightly  about  the  waist,  and  supported  by 
straps  over  the  shoulders.  This  jacket-belt 
was  made  for  him  by  a  native  woman. 

For  the  most  part  the  long  and  weari- 
some journey  was  to  be  made  in  a  canoe, 
and  the  burden  of  the  gold  was  therefore 
far  less  than  it  would  have  been  had  it  been 
necessary  for  Mr.  Stead  to  cover  the  dis- 
tance on  foot. 

The  bearer  of  the  treasure  was  amply 
armed.  He  carried  a  repeating  rifle,  and 
he  wore  a  revolver  at  his  waist.  He  was  to 
be  accompanied  throughout  his  trip  by  one 
white  man,  and  one  only.  This  compan- 
ion was  a  fellow-employe  of  the  Essequibo 


88  TWO   LETTERS 

Gold  Company,  Mr.  Thomas  Austin,  also  an 
American,  but  a  man  of  far  less  readiness  of 
resource  and  strength  of  character  than  Mr. 
Stead.  Austin  had  occupied  a  humble  posi- 
tion in  the  service  of  the  company,  and  the 
climate  had  broken  his  health,  so  that  he 
begged  the  privilege  of  returning  to  Deme- 
rara  with  Mr.  Stead,  to  whose  recommenda- 
tion, indeed,  he  owed  his  engagement. 

The  canoe  which  was  to  bear  the  intrepid 
travellers  on  their  long  and  lonesome  voyage 
was  of  the  kind  called  by  the  natives  a 
"wood-skin" — that  is  to  say,  it  was  made 
from  the  heavy  bark  of  the  purple-heart ;  it 
was  about  fifteen  feet  long,  and  it  could 
carry  comfortably  the  two  voyagers,  with  a 
supply  of  provisions  sufficient  for  their  jour- 
ney. 

On  the  first  stage  of  the  journey,  down 
to  the  King  William  IV.  Falls,  the  two 
Americans  were  accompanied  by  a  band  of 
the  friendly  Tarumas ;  but  after  assisting 
Mr.  Stead  and  his  companion  over  the  port- 
age around  the  falls,  these  Indians  bade 
them  farewell,  and  returned  to  their  own 
country,  not  daring  to  venture  into  the  wild- 


TWO    LETTERS  89 

er  Carib  territory,  through  which  the  Esse- 
quibo  River  passes.  Mr.  Stead  is  now  in- 
clined to  believe  that  the  Tarumas  were 
also  affrighted  by  the  rumors  about  the 
White  Indians. 

This  passage  through  the  land  of  the 
Caribs  was  always  accounted  the  most  dan- 
gerous part  of  the  voyage  down  the  river 
from  the  mines  to  the  coast.  Mr.  Stead  and 
Austin  accomplished  it  without  delay  or 
mishap.  For  hours  they  floated  down  with 
the  swollen  current,  making  no  other  exer- 
tion than  was  needed  to  keep  the  canoe  in 
the  swiftest  channel.  For  hours  they  sped 
along  in  the  midst  of  the  oppressive  silence 
of  a  South -American  forest  —  a  vast  and 
deadly  stillness,  awful  beyond  belief,  and 
broken  only  now  and  again  by  a  startling 
scream.  At  noon  sometimes  a  booming 
crash  would  echo  through  the  forest,  fol- 
lowed by  a  clang  like  that  of  an  iron  bar 
against  a  hollow  tree.  Then  the  silence 
would  settle  down  again,  and  it  might  be  an 
hour  or  more  before  a  piercing  half  human 
and  wholly  terrible  shriek  would  shrill  out. 
Towards  night,  again,  as  the  twilight  fell 


90  TWO    LETTERS 

and  the  long  shadows  of  the  twisted  trees 
lay  black  and  contorted  on  the  water,  a  cry 
would  suddenly  rend  the  air — a  weird,  blood- 
curdling yell ;  and  the  travellers  would  tire 
themselves  in  vain  effort  to  account  for  it. 
And  through  these  horrible  sounds,  and 
through  this  still  more  horrible  silence,  the 
two  Americans  fared  forward  to  the  settle- 
ments of  civilization  on  the  coast. 

Through  the  territory  of  the  Caribs  they 
passed  without  adventure  or  misadventure. 
It  was  not  until  they  came  under  the  shad- 
ow of  the  Makarapan  Mountains  that  they 
had  the  first  suggestion  of  impending  evil. 
They  landed  for  dinner  on  the  left-hand 
side  of  the  stream,  and  as  they  were  about 
to  prepare  their  simple  repast  there  appeared 
before  them  suddenly  three  stalwart  war- 
riors. Fortunately  Mr.  Stead  saw  them  re- 
flected on  the  surface  of  a  pool  of  water 
spreading  from  a  bubbling  spring  beside 
which  the  travellers  had  seated  themselves, 
and  he  was  able  to  grasp  his  repeating  rifle 
in  time  to  confront  the  strange  visitors. 
Apparently  the  new-comers  knew  what  fire- 
arms were,  although  they  themselves  were 


TWO    LETTERS  91 

equipped  only  with  bows  and  arrows.  They 
advanced  and  stood  before  the  two  Ameri- 
cans. Mr.  Stead  stared  at  them  in  surprise, 
as  he  saw  how  they  differed  from  the  ordi- 
nary native  of  the  Essequibo  Valley.  The 
Indians  of  Guiana  adorn  their  bodies  in  fan- 
tastic patterns,  with  a  red  paint  which  is 
highly  scented,  and  they  wear  necklaces  of 
boars'  teeth.  The  three  men  who  stood  be- 
fore Stead  were  unpainted,  and  they  wore 
only  ornaments  of  feathers ;  and,  most  re- 
markable of  all,  their  skins,  although  not 
white,  were  far  lighter  in  color  than  any  Ind- 
ian's. 

For  a  moment  the  two  groups  stood  si- 
lently facing  one  another.  Then  the  White 
Indians,  as  Mr.  Stead  calls  them,  drew  near- 
er, and  the  one  who  seemed  to  be  their 
leader  spoke.  Austin,  who  had  been  longer 
in  South  America  than  Stead,  said  that  the 
only  word  he  could  recognize  was  "gold." 
At  first  this  seemed  to  have  no  significance, 
but  when  the  chief  approached  Stead,  and 
touched  the  treasure -belt  he  wore  beneath 
his  shirt,  and  sought  to  remove  it,  then  the 
Americans  knew  that  the  White  Indians 


92  TWO    LETTERS 

were  aware  of  the  object  of  their  journey, 
and  that  thereafter  they  might  have  to  de- 
fend the  gold  with  their  lives.  How  the 
Indians  got  wind  of  the  precious  belt  it  was 
impossible  to  say,  but  Mr.  Stead  has  reason 
to  suspect  that  one  of  the  Taruma  Indians 
— perhaps  the  husband  of  the  woman  who 
had  made  his  treasure-belt — spied  out  the 
secret,  and  managed  to  communicate  it  to 
the  men  who  now  sought  to  waylay  him. 
When  the  White  Indian  reached  out  for  the 
belt,  Mr.  Stead  sternly  thrust  off  the  fellow's 
hand,  and  with  energetic  gestures  indicated 
that  the  treasure  was  his,  and  that  it  could 
not  be  surrendered.  Among  most  savage 
races  sign-language  is  highly  developed,  and 
the  three  men  who  stood  before  Stead  ob- 
viously understood  his  emphatic  negation. 
They  made  another  vain  effort,  and  then 
they  withdrew  into  the  heavy  woods  which 
spread  away  from  the  river  on  both  sides. 

At  Mr.  Stead's  suggestion,  the  two  Amer- 
icans hastily  reloaded  their  canoe,  and 
dropped  down  the  river  a  dozen  miles  or 
more,  stopping  at  last  on  the  other  side  at  a 
bend  of  the  stream,  where  there  seemed  to 


TWO    LETTERS  93 

be  a  level  space  of  grass.  Here  they  made 
a  hasty  meal,  having  started  a  fire  at  the 
roots  of  a  withered  cotton-wood  tree  which 
stood  in  the  centre  of  the  clearing. 

Around  this  tree  the  ground  seemed  to 
have  been  carefully  cleared,  and  at  a  dis- 
tance of  a  dozen  yards  or  so  there  was  a- 
circle  of  white  stones,  so  regularly  placed 
that  it  was  scarcely  possible  not  to  accept 
them  as  having  been  arranged  by  human 
hands.  Throughout  Guiana  the  huge  cot- 
ton-wood decays  into  fantastic  shapes  like 
the  skeleton  of  a  demon.  Austin  told  his 
companion  that  the  natives  are  very  super- 
stitious about  the  cotton  -  wood,  and  will 
never  cut  one  down,  or  even  throw  stones 
at  it,  believing  that  misfortune  will  surely 
follow  if  they  do.  Many  are  the  strange  be- 
liefs among  the  Indians.  "There  is  even 
known  to  be  a  tribe,"  said  Austin,  "  which 
worships  a  sacred  bird."  Mr.  Stead  recalled 
the  custom  of  the  Incas  in  the  old  days  of 
Peruvian  civilization,  when  the  monarch 
wore  upright  in  his  turban  three  feathers  of 
a  rare  and  curious  bird,  the  coraquenque. 
This  biped  was  sacred  to  the  ruler ;  it  served 


94  TWO    LETTERS 

only  to  supply  the  plume  which  was  the 
badge  of  sovereignty ;  and  if  an  ordinary 
citizen  killed  one  the  penalty  was  death. 

The  two  Americans  had  built  their  fire 
in  the  prickly  spurs  of  the  tree,  feeding  it 
with  chips  from  the  withered  branches,  which 
still  extended  from  the  hollow  trunk.  When 
they  were  finishing  their  repast  the  fire  had 
burned  well  into  the  roots,  and  the  whole 
tree  began  to  blaze  up.  As  the  smoke 
poured  thick  through  the  rotten  trunk,  as 
through  a  chimney,  there  was  a  noise  of 
wings  and  a  weird  hooting,  and  an  awkward 
fowl  flew  up  out  of  the  hollow,  where  it  had 
been  reposing. 

Obeying  a  sudden  impulse,  Stead  seized 
his  gun,  and  as  the  fleeting  object  was  out- 
lined against  the  fading  twilight,  he  fired, 
and  brought  it  down  with  a  single  shot. 

"  Let's  hope  I  haven't  killed  the  sacred 
bird  !"  he  cried,  as  the  gory  mass  of  feathers 
fell  to  the  ground. 

But  that  was  exactly  what  he  had  unwit- 
tingly done  ;  and  the  evil  deed  brought  dire 
misfortune.  As  the  echo  of  the  shot  died 
away,  the  two  Americans  heard  a  long  loud 


TWO    LETTERS  95 

whistle  almost  human,  but  with  a  ghoulish 
shrillness. 

"  Now  we  shall  have  bad  luck,"  said  Aus- 
tin, shivering  despite  the  fire  before  which 
he  was  standing. 

"Why?"  asked  Stead. 

"Because  that  is  the  call  of  the  Didi, 
and  it  always  forebodes  evil  to  those  who 
hear  it." 

Mr.  Stead  was  aware  that  the  Didi  is  an 
unknown  and  unseen  evil  spirit,  which  the 
natives  believe  to  lurk  in  the  dark  depths  of 
the  forest.  To  him  is  attributed  any  sudden 
death  or  mysterious  disappearance.  But 
Mr.  Stead  is  not  superstitious ;  laughing 
lightly  at  Austin's  evident  dread,  he  stepped 
into  the  brush  and  brought  forth  the  body 
of  the  bird. 

"It  is  like  the  coraquenque,"  he  said,  as 
he  held  it  in  his  hand.  "  See,  here  are  the 
three  royal  feathers." 

"  Hush !"  whispered  Austin,  suddenly, 
gripping  his  arm.  "We  have  been  follow- 
ed. Don't  you  hear  the  paddles  ?" 

Stead  listened  intently,  and  from  the  dis- 
tance there  came  a  succession  of  faint  sounds. 


96  TWO    LETTERS 

"  They  are  on  our  trail,"  said  Austin. 

"  Who  ?"  asked  Stead. 

"The  White  Indians,"  answered  Austin. 
"  They  know  that  you  have  the  gold,  and 
they  will  not  cease  from  following  us  till 
they  get  it.  Don't  you  hear  them  ?" 

Again  the  two  Americans  held  their  breath 
as  they  bent  forward  listening.  From  over 
the  water  there  came  a  regular  rhythmical 
sound  as  of  paddle  strokes.  Then  sudden- 
ly there  rang  out  again  the  shrill,  uncanny 
whistle  of  the  Didi. 

"  I'm  going  to  get  out  of  this,"  cried  Aus- 
tin. 

Mr.  Stead  threw  down  the  body  of  the 
bird.  "  If  there  is  some  one  on  our  track," 
he  said,  "  we  had  best  not  stand  in  the  glare 
of  this  fire.  Nobody  could  ask  a  better  mark 
than  we  are  here." 

They  stepped  back  into  the  shadow.  For- 
tunately they  had  not  unloaded  the  wood- 
skin,  and  Mr.  Stead  had  not  removed  the 
treasure-belt  from  his  waist.  Their  canoe 
was  hidden  in  the  shrubbery  which  thickly 
fringed  the  river  a  few  yards  below  the  point 
where  they  had  lighted  their  fire.  When 


TWO   LETTERS  97 

they  came  to  the  wood-skin,  night  was  al- 
ready settling  down  on  them.  Only  the 
blazing  tree  cast  a  ruddy  glow. 

Austin  got  into  the  boat  at  once ;  but 
Stead,  after  handing  his  rifle  to  his  com- 
panion, stood  on  the  shore,  hidden  in  the 
darkness,  peering  forward  to  see  if  they 
were  really  pursued. 

"Come  on,"  cried  Austin;  "we  are  losing 
time." 

"  Why  need  we  go  ?"  said  Stead.  "  I  want 
first  to  make  sure  that  there  is  a  reason  for 
flight." 

"Reason  enough,"  Austin  answered.  "If 
you  had  been  in  this  country  as  long  as  I, 
you  would  know  that  the  Didi  never  brought 
anybody  good-luck." 

Stead  did  not  answer.  At  that  instant  he 
saw  the  bow  of  a  canoe  come  out  of  the 
shadow  into  the  light  of  the  flaming  cotton- 
wood. 

There  were  three  men  in  this  canoe ;  two 
of  them  were  paddling,  and  one  was  seated 
in  the  centre.  They  were  the  three  White 
Indians  who  had  visited  the  two  Americans 
in  the  afternoon. 


98  TWO    LETTERS 

"  What  are  you  waiting  for  now  ?"  Austin 
whispered,  in  a  trembling  voice.  "  You  see 
they  are  after  us.  Get  into  the  boat  at  once, 
and  we  can  still  escape  them." 

Stead  looked  at  his  companion  with  some 
slight  surprise.  "  I  don't  think,"  he  said, 
"that  two  Americans  ought  to  run  away 
from  three  Indians." 

"  But  we  don't  know  how  many  more  they 
have  coming  with  them,"  answered  Austin, 
pettishly.  "  Enough  of  this  foolishness,  I 
say.  Get  in  now,  or  I'll  push  off  without 
you." 

Stead  said  nothing,  but  silently  watched 
the  three  men  make  fast  their  canoe  and 
step  out  on  land.  They  looked  up  the  river, 
and  one  of  them  gave  a  doleful  cry.  It  was 
repeated  from  far  over  the  water,  and  then 
taken  up  again  and  again,  farther  and  far- 
ther off. 

"  They  have  a  dozen  more  wood-skins  on 
the  way  down  here,"  said  the  timorous  Aus- 
tin. "  I  give  you  fair  warning  I  am  not  go- 
ing to  stay  here  to  count  them.  With  you 
or  without  you,  I'm  off." 

Before  Stead  could  reply,  a  second  canoe 


TWO    LETTERS  99 

came  in  sight.  As  it  touched  the  bank,  five 
more  of  the  White  Indians  alighted  from  it. 
The  three  who  had  first  landed  drew  near 
to  the  tree  on  fire.  One  of  these  almost 
stepped  on  the  carcass  of  the  bird  Stead 
had  shot.  He  stopped  and  picked  it  up,  and 
gave  a  sudden  wail  of  sorrow.  The  others 
had  no  sooner  laid  eyes  on  the  slain  bird, 
with  its  sacred  feathers  bedraggled  with 
blood,  than  they  too  made  a  pitiful  cry. 
Then,  as  the  new-comers  approached,  the 
bird  was  pointed  out,  and  all  eight  of  the 
White  Indians  raised  a  fierce  yell.  Though 
the  language  was  unknown,  the  meaning  of 
their  outcry  was  plain  enough — they  would 
seek  revenge  for  this  sacrilege.  And  so,  by 
his  innocent  shot,  Mr.  Stead  had  added  a 
religious  fervor  to  their  pursuit;  and  they 
sought  now  not  only  his  treasure,  but  his 
life  as  well. 

Brave  as  he  was,  he  felt  that  the  time  had 
come  to  withdraw.  But  when  he  turned  to 
join  Austin  in  the  wood-skin,  he  found  that 
it  was  gone.  Affrighted  by  the  revengeful 
shriek,  Austin  had  deserted  him.  Mr.  Stead 
was  alone,  without  a  friend,  without  a  boat, 


100  TWO    LETTERS 

without  food.  He  had  nothing  but  his  treas- 
ure-belt and  his  revolver,  with  the  twenty  or 
thirty  cartridges  he  happened  to  have  on  his 
person. 

.  At  this  moment  a  third  canoe  appeared, 
and  five  more  White  Indians  were  added  to 
the  group  gathered  about  the  fire.  Mr.  Stead 
took  advantage  of  the  noise  and  excitement 
which  arose  among  his  foes  as  they  showed 
the  new-comers  the  body  of  the  bird  he  had 
slain,  and  crept  farther  back  into  the  bushes 
as  noiselessly  as  he  could.  Escape  by  way 
of  the  river  was  impossible,  now  that  Austin 
had  abandoned  him.  To  get  away  from  the 
water  into  the  woods  which  masked  the  hills 
was  his  sole  chance  of  safety.  For  the  mo- 
ment the  one  thing  needful  was  to  take  him- 
self out  of  sight  of  the  rapidly  increasing 
band  of  White  Indians,  who  were  determined 
to  kill  him,  moved  now  by  the  double  motive 
of  avenging  a  sacrilege  and  of  plundering  his 
treasure.  After  he  might  get  clear  of  them, 
it  would  be  time  enough  to  make  plans  for 
returning  to  the  settlements  of  civilization. 

With  every  muscle  at  its  highest  tension, 
Mr.  Stead  wormed  his  way  along  the  ground, 


TWO   LETTERS  IOI 

borne  down  by  the  weight  of  his  gold,  which 
even  then,  in  the  dire  extremity  of  his  dan- 
ger, he  did  not  think  of  abandoning.  Inch 
by  inch,  foot  by  foot,  he  crawled  away  from 
the  fatal  spot.  At  every  step  he  expected 
to  betray  himself.  Every  minute  he  feared 
to  see  the  White  Indians  scatter  in  pursuit 
of  him.  To  this  day  he  does  not  know  why 
they  made  no  immediate  effort  to  discover 
his  whereabouts.  The  shot  that  killed  the 
coraquenque  was  fired  when  they  were  in 
hearing,  but  two  minutes  before  they  came 
in  sight,  and  the  bird  must  yet  have  been 
warm  with  life  when  they  took  it  in  their 
hands.  Why  it  was  that  they  did  not  make 
an  instant  search  for  the  man,  who  could 
not  have  been  far  off,  is  to  him  inexplica- 
ble. Mr.  Stead  is  now  inclined  to  accept 
this  dilatoriness  and  delay  of  his  enemies 
as  the  providential  means  of  his  escape.  As 
it  was,  he  succeeded  in  gaining  the  verge  of 
the  denser  forest  on  the  hill-side  just  as  the 
moon  came  out  and  flooded  with  light  the 
vacant  spaces  across  which  he  had  fled  but 
a  few  minutes  before  under  cover  of  the 
friendly  darkness. 


102  TWO    LETTERS 

The  hill  forest  was  distant  barely  half  a 
mile  from  the  river-bank,  but  Mr.  Stead  had 
taken  more  than  an  hour  to  make  the  jour- 
ney, on  his  hands  and,  knees  mostly,  except 
where  he  arose  to  dash  across  a  clearing  as 
swiftly  as  he  could.  He  sat  him  down  in 
the  shadow  of  the  trees,  to  take  breath  and 
to  collect  his  thoughts.  He  had  only  a 
vague  idea  as  to  his  exact  position,  but  he 
believed  that  a  little  way  below  the  mount- 
ain rose  abruptly  on  each  side  of  the  stream, 
and  the  river  ran  through  a  narrow  gorge. 
On  the  other  side,  it  might  be  some  ten  or 
twenty  miles  away,  or  it  might  be  more,  there 
was  a  village  of  friendly  Indians,  where  he 
had  once  spent  the  night  on  his  journey  up- 
stream to  the  gold  mines.  If  he  could  but 
get  to  this  village  he  doubted  not  that  he 
could  procure  a  wood-skin  and  assistance 
to  continue  his  journey  to  the  coast,  where 
he  had  agreed  to  deliver  the  treasure  which 
now  weighed  him  down. 

The  blazing  tree  by  whose  roots  he  was 
standing  when  he  had  shot  the  fatal  cora- 
quenque  a  couple  of  hours  before  had  burned 
itself  out,  but  on  the  open  space  before  it 


TWO    LETTERS  103 

there  was  gathered  a  group  of  the  White 
Indians  which  he  reckoned  to  contain  at 
least  fifty.  They  were  drawn  up  in  rings 
about  the  chief — the  tall  man  who  had  first 
addressed  Stead  —  and  this  chief  seemed 
to  be  haranguing  them.  A  cry  of  approval 
punctuated  his  sentences,  and  when  he  con- 
cluded there  arose  a  yell  of  vengeance,  which 
Mr.  Stead,  alone  in  the  darkness  of  the  hill 
forest  above  them,  could  hear,  and  heard 
without  fear. 

Yet  it  was  with  a  certain  beating  of  the 
heart  that  he  saw  his  foes  scatter  in  search 
of  him  at  la'st.  While  he  was  recovering  his 
breath  and  resting  his  muscles,  a  shout  from 
the  shore  notified  him  that  the  point  was 
discovered  where  the  canoe  had  been  made 
fast  The  trail  of  Mr.  Stead's  tortuous  and 
crawling  progress  from  that  spot  into  the 
denser  brushwood  fifty  yards  away  was  plain. 
In  fifteen  minutes  more  the  W'hite  Indians 
in  a  compact  body  were  pressing  forward  on 
his  track  through  the  undergrowth  of  the 
foot-hills. 

Then  began  for  Mr.  Stead  a  flight  by 
night  which  was  enough  to  break  the  nerves 


104  TWO    LETTERS 

of  the  bravest  of  men.  Through  the  dark- 
ness, in  the  forest,  uphill  and  on  the  level, 
lighted  only  by  the  chance  rays  of  the  moon 
as  they  broke  through  the  heavy  foliage, 
borne  down  by  the  weight  of  his  golden 
burden,  worn  out  by  the  labor  of  the  day 
and  by  the  haste  of  his  escape,  on  and  on 
he  toiled,  hearing  the  call  of  his  pursuers, 
now  fainter  and  now  louder,  pushing  ahead, 
but  not  knowing  where  he  was  going,  and 
conscious  finally  of  naught  but  a  struggle 
between  his  love  of  life  and  an  overmaster- 
ing fatigue,  which  multiplied  with  every  step 
he  took. 

At  last  he  could  do  no  more.  He  had 
been  climbing  higher  and  higher,  and  he 
had  come  out  on  a  shelf  of  rock,  from  which 
the  mountains  seemed  to  rise  sheer  be- 
fore him.  He  had  no  strength  to  advance, 
even  if  his  benumbed  intelligence  could 
see  a  path  upward.  He  sank  down  where 
he  stood,  exhausted  absolutely,  conscious 
only  that  the  signals  of  his  pursuers  had 
been  fainter  of  late.  But  before  he  could 
even  formulate  a  hope  that  he  had  dis- 
tanced them,  or  that  they  had  lost  his  trail, 


TWO   LETTERS  105 

Nature    claimed    her    own,    and    he    was 
asleep. 

How  long  he  slept  he  did  not  know  ;  but 
when  he  awoke  the  sun  was  breaking  over 
the  mountains.  He  lay  still,  slowly  collect- 
ing his  thoughts.  Even  then  he  could  not 
recall  all  the  incidents  of  his  flight.  He 
had  fled,  and  they  had  pursued,  and  he  was 
safe  so  far — this  was  all  he  knew,  and  it  was 
almost  all  he  cared.  How  he  was  to  ad- 
vance farther  he  did  not  know,  or  what  he 
was  to  do  next.  His  bones  ached  as  he  lay 
there  on  the  ground,  his  mouth  was  parched, 
and  he  began  to  feel  the  pangs  of  hunger. 
He  looked  about  him  to  see  if  he  could  not 
find  some  fruit  with  which  he  might  stay 
his  stomach,  or  a  brook  whereat  he  might 
quench  his  thirst.  He  was  lying  on  a  ledge 
of  rock  but  thinly  covered  with  earth,  al- 
though richly  robed  with  the  luxuriant  vege- 
tation of  the  tropics.  In  front  of  him  rose 
the  sheer  cliff  which  in  the  darkness  had 
barred  his  farther  progress.  It  was  this 
rock,  an  unsurmountable  obstacle  in  the 
darkness,  which  was  now  to  prove  a  means 
of  safety  by  day. 


IO6  TWO    LETTERS 

As  Mr.  Stead  gazed  about  him  in  search 
of  what  might  serve  as  meat  and  drink,  the 
light  of  dawn  strengthened,  and  the  preci- 
pice which  towered  before  him  began  to 
glow  with  the  beams  of  the  rising  sun.  In 
this  increase  of  light  he  seemed  to  see  a 
strange  medley  of  figures  moving  across  the 
face  of  the  rock.  At  first  he  mistrusted  his 
senses,  feeling  that  his  fatigue  had  perhaps 
made  him  subject  to  hallucinations  or  vi- 
sions. But  as  he  looked  again  he  found  that 
his  eyes  had  only  half  deceived  him.  The 
figures  were  there  before  him,  but  they  were 
motionless.  Carved  on  the  face  of  the  cliff 
in  rude  relief,  they  were  colored  into  a  sem- 
blance of  reality. 

Then  Mr.  Stead  knew  where  he  was.  He 
recognized  the  fact  that  he  had  before  him 
one  of  the  Pictured  Rocks  of  the  Essequibo, 
which  many  a  voyager  had  sought  and  very 
few  had  ever  found.  He  had  been  told 
that  they  existed  in  three  or  four  places, 
and  that  they  were  always  so  situated  that 
they  could  be  seen  from  afar  by  the  first 
rays  of  the  rising  sun.  What  their  origin 
might  be,  nobody  can  declare  with  precision. 


TWO    LETTERS  107 

Sometimes  they  are  apparently  commemo- 
rative of  some  royal  hero  or  some  noble  feat 
at  arms  ;  sometimes  they  are  obviously  ex- 
planatory devices  designed  to  guide  the 
wayfarer. 

That  which  Mr.  Stead  was  fortunate 
enough  to  find  before  him  belonged  to  this 
latter  class.  It  served  as  a  sign-post,  as  it 
were,  to  a  way  of  safety.  In  this  case  the 
tinted  sculptures  indicated  a  sort  of  profile 
map  of  the  mountains,  with  the  river  flowing 
between.  An  outstretched  hand  with  point- 
ing finger  showed  the  direction  to  be  taken 
if  the  traveller  desired  to  pass  over  to  the 
other  side  of  the  stream  by  a  hanging  bridge 
which  swung  across  the  chasm.  Rudely  cut 
figures  as  rudely  daubed  with  color  were 
proceeding  along  the  paths  and  passing 
over  the  frail  bridge.  Then  Mr.  Stead  re- 
membered that  on  the  journey  up  the  river 
they  had  had  to  make  a  long  portage  around 
the  mountain  because  the  stream  here  ran 
between  high  walls,  and  was  not  to  be  as- 
cended by  boat  on  account  of  its  succession 
of  rapids  and  cataracts.  He  had  never 
heard  that  there  was  any  such  bridge  across 


108  TWO   LETTERS 

the  river  as  was  seen  in  the  picture-writing, 
but  there  might  very  well  be.  And  if  there 
were,  then  he  had  at  least  a  chance  of  es- 
cape. Once  across  the  river,  he  thought  he 
could  find  his  way  to  the  village  of  friendly 
Indians  a  few  miles  farther  below  ;  then  the 
rest  of  the  journey  would  be  easy  and  with- 
out danger. 

How  distant  the  bridge  might  be,  if  in- 
deed there  were  any  bridge,  he  could  not 
estimate  from  the  pictorial  outlines  before 
him.  But  whatever  was  the  distance  the 
direction  was  plain,  and  the  journey  must  be 
undertaken.  Mr.  Stead  arose  and  tightened 
the  belt  around  him.  Following  the  sug- 
gestion of  the  outstretched  finger,  he  started 
along  the  ledge  of  the  cliff,  and  now  that  full 
daylight  helped  him,  he  soon  came  to  a 
break  in  the  rock  above  him  —  a  break 
through  which  it  was  easy  to  attain  the 
brow  of  the  mountain.  Here  he  came  out 
on  a  table-land  less  densely  covered  with 
vegetation.  Although  almost  level,  it  sloped 
gently  upward.  A  quarter  of  a  mile  away 
to  his  right  the  ground  broke,  and  here  he 
supposed  the  high  bank  of  the  river  to  be. 


TWO   LETTERS  log 

A  mile  beyond  him,  or  it  might  be  two,  the 
cliff  of  the  opposite  river-bank  rose  up,  and 
apparently  the  channel  narrowed.  There,  if 
anywhere,  would  be  the  bridge  which  was 
figured  in  the  picture-writing. 

Hitherto  Mr.  Stead  had  proceeded  very 
cautiously,  feeling  his  way  lest  he  should 
walk  into  an  ambush,  looking  back  often  to 
make  sure  that  he  was  not  followed,  and 
keeping  his  revolver  in  his  hand,  with  his 
finger  on  the  trigger.  But  in  the  joy  of  see- 
ing the  table-land  stretch  away  before  him, 
with  the  hope  that  the  bridge  of  safety  was 
but  a  mile  or  two  ahead,  inadvertently  he 
paused  for  a  moment  at  the  edge  of  the 
cliff  up  which  he  had  climbed.  For  a  few 
seconds  only  was  his  figure  outlined  against 
the  sky. 

Brief  as  was  this  space  of  time  it  sufficed. 
A  cry  arose  from  the  hill-side  beneath  him 
to  the  left  of  the  path  by  which  he  had 
come ;  it  was  the  same  cry  with  which  the 
White  Indians  in  the  first  canoe  had  called 
to  their  comrades  in  the  other  boats.  In- 
stantly it  was  repeated — first  to  the  right 
of  him,  then  again  to  the  left,  then  four  or 


HO  TWO    LETTERS 

five  times  farther  down  the  hill-side.  There 
was  no  mistaking  the  meaning  of  these 
calls  :  he  was  discovered,  and  the  enemy 
was  on  his  trail. 

Mr.  Stead  looked  over  the  cliff  again. 
Not  one  of  the  White  Indians  was  in  sight 
So  he  knew  he  had  a  good  start  To  stand 
still  was  but  to  invite  death.  His  one 
chance  of  life  lay  in  reaching  the  bridge 
first  He  set  off  at  once  at  a  rapid  pace 
notwithstanding  the  heavy  weight  of  treas- 
ure which  lined  his  belt  If  it  were  abso- 
lutely necessary  to  save  his  life,  he  was 
ready  to  abandon  the  gold,  but  only  under 
the  most  desperate  circumstances  did  he  in- 
tend to  give  it  up.  The  pursuers  meant  to 
kill  him  and  to  get  his  precious  burden ; 
and  Mr.  Stead  was  resolved  to  prevent,  if 
he  could,  their  doing  either. 

Knowing  that  his  enemies  were  now  fol- 
lowing him  closely,  he  looked  back  with 
every  few  steps  he  took.  In  the  fear  of  a 
fatigue  which  might  prevent  his  reaching  his 
object,  he  dared  not  over-exert  himself,  but 
he  walked  as  fast  as  he  thought  wise.  He 
rested  himself  now  and  again  by  breaking 


TWO    LETTERS  III 

into  a  jog-trot  whenever  the  incline  of  the 
ground  was  not  too  abrupt.  He  had  covered 
nearly  two-thirds  of  the  distance  from  the 
brow  of  the  hill  to  where  he  might  hope  to 
find  the  bridge  when  he  caught  the  first 
glimpse  of  his  pursuers .  the  outline  of  a 
single  man  stood  out  against  the  horizon. 
He  quickened  his  pace. 

When  next  he  looked  back  there  were 
four  or  five  men  gathered  together  in  a  little 
group  about  the  tall  chief.  As  his  eyes 
were  on  them  the  chief  waved  one  hand,  and 
the  warriors  sprang  forward  in  a  brisk  run. 
He  had  seen  them,  and  he  knew  that  they 
could  see  him.  It  was  now  a  question  of 
speed.  If  he  could  get  across  the  bridge 
safe  and  sound,  it  might  be  that  he  could 
hold  it  until  nightfall  should  give  him  an- 
other chance  of  escape.  If  they  should 
catch  up  to  him  on  the  open  ground,  or  if 
there  should  not  be  any  bridge  at  the  spot 
where  he  hoped  to  find  it,  then  all  would  be 
over ;  his  life  would  not  be  worth  an  hour's 
purchase,  however  dearly  he  might  sell  it. 

The  ground  favored  him  just  then,  and 
he  dropped  into  a  gentle  run.  Soon  the 


H2  TWO   LETTERS 

declivity  became  too  steep  for  so  rapid  a 
progress,  and  he  fell  back  to  a  walk.  Again 
he  looked  at  his  pursuers.  The  little  group 
about  the  chief,  not  so  compact  now  as 
when  he  had  first  seen  it,  had  covered  more 
than  a  quarter  of  the  distance  which  had 
separated  them.  And  behind  these  were 
three  other  groups  rushing  towards  him, 
stretching  across  the  slope  one  after  the 
other. 

Mr.  Stead  set  his  teeth  and  strode  for- 
ward. For  five  minutes  he  toiled  steadily 
upward,  as  he  neared  his  goal  the  ascent 
was  steeper.  When  he  could  no  longer  re- 
sist the  desire  to  see  whether  or  not  his 
enemies  were  gaining  on  him,  he  turned  his 
head  again.  The  chief  and  his  followers 
were  but  a  few  hundred  feet  behind  him — 
scarcely  beyond  bow-shot ,  and  tailing  out 
over  the  inclined  plain  were  half  a  hundred 
more  White  Indians,  all  racing  towards  him. 
As  they  saw  him  looking  at  them  they  raised 
fierce  yells  of  hatred. 

In  ten  yards  more  Mr.  Stead  came  out  on 
the  brink  of  the  river,  which  rolled  along  in 
a  deep  gulf  below,  whence  it  sent  out  a  cloud 


TWO    LETTERS  113 

of  spray  from  a  thundering  cataract.  Scarce 
a  hundred  feet  before  him  the  gulf  was 
spanned  by  a  slight  swinging  bridge. 

Mr.  Stead  saw  it,  and  he  gave  a  gasp  of 
relief ;  knowing  there  was  now  no  more  need 
to  husband  his  strength,  he  rushed  forward 
as  fast  as  he  could.  When  he  came  to  the 
foot-path  which  led  to  the  bridge  he  was 
still  a  hundred  feet  in  advance  of  the  near- 
est of  his  pursuers.  He  crossed  the  frail 
and  vibrating  structure  as  swiftly  as  he 
dared,  though  it  trembled  beneath  his  tread, 
and  swung  from  side  to  side  until  it  almost 
threw  him  off  into  the  dark  abyss  below, 
where  the  river  raged  fiercely  along.  As  he 
was  toiling  up  the  farther  half  of  the  bridge 
the  White  Indians  arrived  on  the  brink  of 
the  cliff  behind  him.  They  paused,  and 
two  of  them  fitted  arrows  to  their  bows. 
One  of  these  missiles  missed  Mr.  Stead,  the 
other  struck  him  in  the  back  of  the  waist, 
and  broke  off  against  the  plates  of  gold 
which  protected  his  person  at  that  place. 

When  he  set  foot  on  the  firm  land  and 
faced  about,  three  of  his  foes  were  already 
on  the  bridge  and  crossing  over.  He  stood 


114  TWO   LETTERS 

still  in  the  centre  of  the  path  and  took  de- 
liberate aim  and  fired.  The  foremost  Ind- 
ian threw  up  his  hands  and  fell  sideways 
from  the  bridge.  A  second  shot  struck  the 
next  man  in  the  right  thigh,  and  he  dropped 
back,  vainly  grasping,  as  he  turned  in  the 
air,  at  the  ropes  which  supported  the  fragile 
pathway,  and  dropped  down  into  the  dark 
water  which  was  roaring  along  the  bottom 
of  the  chasm  more  than  a  hundred  feet  be- 
low. The  third  man  had  but  just  started 
on  his  perilous  passage  :  when  his  two  pred- 
ecessors perished  so  suddenly,  he  hesitated 
for  a  second,  then  he  sprang  forward  again. 
The  chief  stretched  out  his  arm  and  stayed 
the  other  White  Indians  as  they  came  up, 
waiting  to  see  what  might  be  the  fate  of  the 
third  man.  Mr.  Stead  held  his  fire  until 
this  man  —  a  tall,  handsome  fellow  —  was 
within  fifty  feet  of  him,  then  he  pulled  the 
trigger,  and  the  pursuer,  shot  through  the 
heart,  sprang  up  into  the  air,  and  fell  down 
into  the  gulf  below,  knotted  into  a  convul- 
sive ball.  Then  Mr.  Stead,  seeing  that  there 
was  no  movement  on  the  part  of  his  enemies 
to  attack  again,  reloaded  his  revolver. 


TWO   LETTERS  115 

By  this  time  nearly  all  the  warriors  had 
assembled  on  the  other  side.  Several  of 
the  late  comers  were  about  to  run  forward 
on  the  bridge,  but  the  tall  chief  called  them 
back.  Suddenly  a  flight  of  arrows  shot 
across  the  chasm,  and  fluttered  down  be- 
fore Mr.  Stead's  feet.  He  was  just  out  of 
range.  But  he  thought  it  best  to  discourage 
any  desire  they  might  have  to  use  him  as  a 
mark:  taking  careful  aim,  he  fired  his  re- 
volver again,  and  the  bullet  broke  the  chief's 
arm.  An  awful  yell  arose  at  this,  and  for 
the  third  time  the  chief  had  to  restrain  the 
impetuosity  of  his  followers.  Mr.  Stead 
could  not  but  admire  the  reckless  bravery 
of  his  foes,  eager  to  sacrifice  their  lives 
to  avenge  their  leader. 

For  a  few  minutes  there  was  a  respite. 
While  an  old  man  carefully  bandaged  the 
chief's  wounded  arm,  the  others  gathered 
about  them  and  raised  a  weird,  irregular, 
pathetic  chant,  which  seemed  part  of  the 
ceremonial  of  cure.  Mr.  Stead  took  ad- 
vantage of  the  lull  to  consider  the  situation. 
So  long  as  he  could  hold  the  end  of  the 
bridge  he  was  safe ;  they  could  advance 


Il6  TWO    LETTERS 

across  it  only  one  at  a  time,  and  their  num- 
bers were  therefore  of  no  advantage  to  them. 
Yet  this  security  was  but  temporary ;  he 
dared  not  abandon  his  post,  for  his  safety 
depended  on  his  defending  it.  He  was 
forced  to  remain  where  he  was,  and  to  make 
no  attempt  to  proceed  on  his  journey.  His 
foes  outnumbered  him  fifty  to  one.  They 
could  tire  him  out,  and  they  could  starve 
him  out,  if  they  were  willing  to  settle  down 
to  a  siege.  They  might  even  separate,  and 
while  one  detachment  kept  him  at  bay,  the 
other  might  retrace  its  steps  to  the  place 
where  he  shot  the  bird  of  ill  omen,  and 
where  their  canoes  were  ;  then,  crossing  the 
river  in  these,  they  might  come  down  and 
take  him  in  the  rear. 

This  scheme  seemed  to  have  occurred  to 
the  chief  at  the  very  moment  that  it  sug- 
gested itself  to  Mr.  Stead.  From  his  com- 
manding position  the  American  saw  the 
leader  of  the  White  Indians  call  a  man  for- 
ward and  give  him  a  series  of  orders,  ac- 
companied by  gestures  which  Mr.  Stead 
found  no  difficulty  in  interpreting.  When 
he  had  received  his  instructions  the  chosen 


TWO    LETTERS  117 

leader  of  the  detachment  went  among  his 
comrades  and  picked  out  a  dozen  of  them. 
These  he  drew  up  in  line  before  the  chiej, 
who  spoke  a  few  words  of  advice,  apparent- 
ly, and  of  warning.  When  the  chief  ceased, 
his  followers  raised  a  shout  of  anticipatory 
triumph,  shaking  their  weapons  in  the  air, 
and  casting  looks  of  hatred  against  the 
single  American.  Then  the  designated 
group  broke  away  from  the  main  body  and 
ran  back  on  their  own  trail.  In  less  than 
five  minutes  they  were  lost  to  sight. 

Mr.  Stead  had  no  doubt  as  to  the  mean- 
ing of  the  departure  of  this  detachment  of 
his  foes.  He  knew  that  in  a  definite  time 
—  probably  four  or  five  hours  —  he  would 
be  outflanked.  With  an  enemy  behind  him, 
against  whom  he  could  have  no  protection, 
his  doom  would  soon  be  sealed.  He  saw 
that  if  he  wished  to  save  his  life,  and  to 
bear  off  the  treasure  which  had  been  con- 
fided to  him,  and  which  he  had  bound  him- 
self to  convey  safely  to  its  destination, 
he  must  do  something,  and  he  must  do  it 
quickly. 

His  first  thought  was  to  pick  off  his  op- 


Il8  TWO    LETTERS 

ponents  one  by  one,  as  he  had  wounded 
the  chief.  But  a  moment's  reflection  showed 
the  impossibility  of  this  proceeding.  There 
were  still  nearly  two-score  White  Indians  at 
the  other  end  of  the  bridge.  By  taking 
them  unawares,  he  might  hope  to  kill  ten  or 
a  dozen.  But  what  would  this  profit  him  ? 
The  rest  would  hide  themselves  behind  the 
rocks,  and,  securely  under  cover,  they  could 
then  bide  their  time,  exposing  themselves 
only  when  their  comrades  might  announce 
their  arrival  on  his  side  of  the  river.  And 
yet  another  reason  deterred  him.  His  stock 
of  ammunition  was  limited ;  he  had  barely 
a  score  more  cartridges. 

To  remain  where  he  was  would  be  im- 
possible, and  to  retreat  while  his  foes  might 
at  once  cross  the  bridge  after  him  was  to  in- 
vite an  immediate  death.  His  only  hope  of 
safety  was  so  to  bar  their  passage  across 
the  river  that  he  might  continue  his  journey 
without  fear  of  their  following  him. 

The  bridge  was  of  a  kind  uncommon  in 
Guiana,  but  frequent  enough  in  the  passes 
of  the  Andes,  where  it  was  found  when  the 
soldiers  of  Pizarro  first  trod  the  soil  of  Peru. 


TWO    LETTERS  1 19 

It  is  probably  the  most  primitive  form  of 
the  suspension-bridge.  It  consists  of  two 
stout  cables  stretched  across  the  valley  in  a 
pendent  arc.  These  cables  are  made  of 
the  pliant  woody  stems  of  climbing  plants, 
twisted  into  bush-ropes,  as  they  are  called ; 
and  they  are  almost  unbreakable  by  any 
strain  likely  to  be  put  on  them.  These 
tough  and  flexible  cables  are  fastened  to 
huge  rocks  on  each  side  of  the  gulf,  running 
parallel  with  each  other,  less  than  a  yard 
apart.  They  are  floored  with  light  planks 
laid  across  from  cable  to  cable,  and  securely 
lashed  by  bands  of  mamurie,  a  finer  cord 
made  of  osier  withes  or  lianas.  On  each 
side  of  the  main  cables  and  a  little  above 
them  is  another  slighter  bush-rope,  intended 
to  serve  as  a  hand-rail  for  those  who  trust 
themselves  on  the  fragile  and  oscillating 
bridge. 

To  block  a  delicate  suspension  -  bridge 
like  this  so  as  to  debar  a  passage  across  it 
would  be  impossible.  But  as  Mr.  Stead, 
under  the  pressure  of  impending  death,  took 
stock  of  the  situation  and  considered  the 
matter  in  every  light,  he  saw  that  it  might 


120  TWO    LETTERS 

not  be  impossible  to  destroy  the  bridge. 
Tough  as  were  the  huge  cables  of  twisted 
vines,  he  believed  that  he  could  saw  through 
them  with  the  knife  which  every  South- 
American  traveller  must'  needs  carry.  Un- 
fortunately, as  he  found,  he  could  not  do 
the  work  of  destruction  except  in  full  sight 
of  the  beleaguering  foe.  On  his  side  of  the 
river  a  lip  of  rock  thrusting  well  out  into 
the  valley  had  been  chosen  as  the  landing- 
place ;  the  two  cables  had  been  stretched 
tightly  across,  then  they  disappeared  into  the 
earth,  being  apparently  made  fast  to  subter- 
ranean stones. 

Mr.  Stead  made  a  most  careful  examina- 
tion. His  one  chance  of  safety  was  to  de- 
stroy the  bridge,  and  the  one  place  where 
this  could  best  be  done  was  at  the  very 
verge  of  the  precipice  from  which  it  pro- 
jected. In  fact,  to  work  to  advantage,  Mr. 
Stead  saw  that  he  would  have  to  bend  for- 
ward over  the  yawning  chasm.  For  this 
reason  he  removed  his  treasure  -  belt  or 
jacket,  laying  it  at  his  feet.  He  looked  to 
his  revolver,  preparing  a  little  pile  of  car- 
tridges ready  to  his  hand,  wisely  thinking 


TWO   LETTERS  121 

that  the  White  Indians  would  probably 
renew  their  attack  as  soon  as  they  discov- 
ered what  he  was  doing.  He  sharpened  his 
knife.  Then  he  seated  himself  between  the 
two  cables  at  the  edge  of  the  shelf  of  rock, 
and  began  the  task  of  cutting  them  in 
two. 

He  had  labored  for  several  minutes  be- 
fore the  White  Indians  took  any  notice  of 
his  movements.  Then  one  of  them  began 
to  watch  him  suspiciously,  and  called  the 
attention  of  the  chief.  In  a  minute  they 
discovered  what  his  object  was.  A  wild 
shriek  of  rage  arose,  and  two  men  seized 
their  weapons  and  sprang  forward  along 
the  bridge.  Mr.  Stead  shifted  his  knife 
to  his  left  hand  and  grasped  his  revolver. 
The  two  White  Indians  came  on  as  fast  as 
their  swinging  foothold  would  allow.  When 
they  were  within  forty  feet  of  him  he  fired, 
and  the  first  man  fell  back.  He  fired  again, 
and  the  second  man,  tripping  on  his  com- 
rade's body,  which  lay  dead  across  the  foot- 
path, dropped  down,  turning  spasmodically 
until  he  struck  the  water  below,  and  was 
hurried  out  of  sight. 


122  TWO    LETTERS 

Mr.  Stead  reloaded  his  revolver  and  re- 
sumed work. 

Other  White  Indians  hung  back  just  at 
the  entrance  to  the  bridge,  doubting  and 
undecided.  The  American  kept  his  eye  on 
them  while  he  went  on  with  his  labors. 
The  vegetable  fibre  of  the  bush-rope  was 
singularly  resisting,  and  to  cut  it  called  for 
strength  and  skill  and  time.  There  was  a 
hesitation  among  his  adversaries  which 
gave  him  opportunity  almost  to  sever  the 
cable  at  his  right  hand ;  at  least  it  was  more 
than  half  cut  through,  when  his  knife 
broke,  and  the  best  part  of  the  blade 
slipped  into  the  abyss. 

At  this  moment  he  noticed  an  unusu- 
al movement  among  the  White  Indians. 
They  had  withdrawn  a  little  to  a  clear 
space  on  one  side,  and  there  they  had 
formed  a  ring  around  the  chief.  Chanting 
a  wild  but  simple  refrain,  they  circled  about 
their  wounded  leader,  who  stood  erect  in 
the  centre,  beating  time  by  striking  the 
ground  with  a  hollow  bamboo  staff  he  held 
in  his  unwounded  hand.  The  rude  and 
monotonous  song  they  sang  resembled  a 


TWO    LETTERS  123 

dirge,  wailing  and  funereal ;  it  was  broken 
at  regular  intervals  by  discordant  shouts. 

With  the  stump  of  his  knife  still  service- 
able, Mr.  Stead  was  at  work  on  the  cable 
at  his  left ;  but  he  never  took  his  eyes  from 
the  enemy.  He  could  not  guess  their  pur- 
pose, but  he  felt  sure  that  it  portended  evil 
to  him,  and  that  he  must  be  more  than  ever 
on  his  guard. 

Suddenly  there  was  a  shout  louder  than 
the  rest,  and  one  of  the  White  Indians 
broke  from  the  ring  and  stood  on  one  side. 
Then  the  same  monotonous  wailing  began 
again ;  and  in  due  season  there  was  another 
loud  shout,  and  a  second  man  left  the  ring, 
and  took  his  place  by  the  side  of  the  first. 
A  third  time  the  rude  chanting  began,  the 
chief  beating  on  the  ground  with  his  bam- 
boo staff,  and  after  the  same  interval  there 
was  again  a  loud  shout,  and  a  third  man 
took  position  with  the  other  two. 

This  proceeding  puzzled  Mr.  Stead,  and, 
without  slacking  his  labor  on  the  left-hand 
cable,  he  bent  his  attention  to  the  doings 
of  his  foes.  Strange  as  was  the  rough 
chant,  which  soon  began  again  for  the 


124  TWO   LETTERS 

fourth  time,  there  seemed  to  the  American 
something  familiar  in  its  rhythm.  He  had 
no  memory  of  having  ever  heard  it  before, 
yet  it  rang  with  a  pulsation  vaguely  resem- 
bling something  that  had  fallen  on  his  ears 
somewhere.  For  a  while  he  could  not  place 
it.  But  as  it  concluded  for  the  fourth  time 
with  a  shout,  and  a  fourth  man  stood  aside, 
there  came  back  to  Mr.  Stead  the  echo  of  a 
foolish  rhyme  of  his  childhood,  a  jingle  of 
gibberish,  unmeaning,  but  useful,  for  it 
served  to  designate  that  one  of  his  boyish 
playfellows  whose  duty  it  should  be  to 
chase  and  touch  the  rest  of  them. 

Then,  as  the  strange  strain  arose  for  the 
fifth  time,  the  American  knew  what  it  was, 
and  he  saw  its  significance.  It  was  a  count- 
ing-out rhyme,  by  which  the  followers  of  the 
tall  chief  were  choosing  men  for  a  special  pur- 
pose. Different  as  was  the  doggerel  he  had 
used  in  his  boyhood  from  that  which  he 
heard  now,  there  was  the  same  marked  reg- 
ularity of  beat,  the  same  simple  rhythm, 
and,  above  all,  the  same  result. 

A  fifth  man  took  his  position  beside  the 
others  who  had  thus  been  chosen  by  chance. 


TWO    LETTERS  12$ 

When  the  song  ceased  again,  a  sixth  man 
stepped  out  of  the  ring  and  joined  his  five 
comrades. 

Mr.  Stead  was  working  away  steadily,  and 
he  had  made  a  deep  cut  in  the  cable  at  his 
left,  softer  and  more  rotten  than  that  on 
his  right,  so  that  his  labor  was  not  harder, 
though  he  now  had  but  the  stump  of  a 
knife. 

After  the  six  men  had  been  selected  the 
rhythmic  chant  ceased,  and  the  ring  was 
abandoned.  The  White  Indians  gathered 
about  the  chief  to  receive  his  instructions. 

Then,  and  then  only,  did  Mr.  Stead  dis- 
cover their  intent.  The  chief  knew  that  the 
revolver  could  fire  only  six  shots  without  re- 
loading. He  had  picked  out  six  men  to  sac- 
rifice themselves  by  drawing  these  six  shots, 
after  which  the  American  would  be  defence- 
less. The  rest  would  rush  forward.  The 
plan  was  simple,  and  it  bid  fair  to  succeed. 

Mr.  Stead  worked  on  with  desperate  en- 
ergy. Every  second  was  precious  to  him. 
If  they  would  delay  their  attack  but  five 
minutes  longer,  the  bridge  would  be  cut, 
and  he  would  be  secure  from  pursuit. 


126  TWO    LETTERS 

But  they  did  not  delay  a  single  minute. 
The  six  men  stepped  to  the  head  of  the 
bridge,  and  stood  one  behind  the  other, 
ready  to  advance.  The  chief  came  forward 
beside  them  and  raised  his  hand.  They  fell 
on  their  knees,  and  he  waved  his  staff  above 
their  heads, while  the  rest  of  the  White  Ind- 
ians uttered  a  shrill  cry,  half  defiant  and 
half  sorrowful.  Then  they  arose  and  girded 
themselves  for  the  certain  death  to  which 
they  were  going.  The  others  fell  in  line  be- 
hind them,  headed  by  the  chief. 

Mr.  Stead  saw  that  the  moment  had  come. 
He  rose  to  his  feet  to  await  the  attack. 

A  moment  more  and  it  came.  The  chief 
gave  the  signal.  A  yell  of  rage  and  hate 
broke  from  the  throats  of  the  White  Ind- 
ians, and  the  six  doomed  men  set  forward 
to  cross  the  bridge,  in  single  file,  followed 
by  the  chief  and  the  rest  of  their  fellow- 
tribesmen.  More  accustomed  to  the  oscil- 
lations of  so  frail  a  structure,  their  progress 
was  far  more  rapid  than  Mr.  Stead's  was 
when  he  had  been  forced  to  run  across  the 
bridge  with  the  enemy  close  behind  him. 

When  the  first  of  the  six  had  reached  the 


TWO    LETTERS 


I27 


body  of  the  man  who  had  been  killed  when 
Mr.  Stead  began  to  cut  the  cable,  the  Amer- 
ican fired,  and  the  White  Indian  plunged 
forward  head-first  into  the  chasm.  Then 
Mr.  Stead  fired  again,  and  the  second  man, 
reeling  forward,  grasped  the  corpse  which 
lay  across  the  bridge,  and  together  the  two 
— the  dead  and  the  dying — dropped  head- 
long into  the  gulf  below.  A  third  shot,  and 
a  fourth  shot,  and  a  fifth  shot,  and  three 
more  of  the  assailants  were  swept  from  the 
bridge. 

At  the  sixth  shot  the  revolver  missed  fire, 
and  the  last  of  the  chosen  six  was  within 
twenty  feet  of  Mr.  Stead  when,  on  the  sec- 
ond attempt,  the  trigger  did  its  duty,  and 
the  bullet  found  its  billet  in  the  doomed 
man's  heart. 

The  six  shots  had  done  their  work,  and 
the  six  men  had  done  theirs.  The  seventh 
man — the  chief  himself — was  not  more  than 
twenty-five  feet  distant  when  the  last  ball 
left  the  American's  revolver.  There  was  no 
time  to  load  again.  The  best  Mr.  Stead 
could  do  was  to  fight  for  his  life  man  to 
man,  at  the  head  of  the  bridge.  He  grasped 


128  TWO   LETTERS 

his  revolver  by  the  barrel,  and  he  stooped 
and  with  his  left  hand  seized  the  stump  of 
the  knife.  He  thought  that  the  seconds  he 
had  yet  to  live  were  counted,  but  he  did  not 
blanch;  he  looked  death  in  the  face  and 
flinched  not. 

But  it  was  not  to  be.  Fortune  favors  the 
brave.  Though  he  had  not  had  time  to  cut 
the  cables  wholly  in  two,  he  had  weakened 
them  so  that  they  were  unable  to  bear  the 
strain  of  the  whole  band  of  White  Indians. 
The  foremost  was  barely  a  yard  from  the 
end  of  the  bridge  when  the  left  cable  part- 
ed, and  Mr.  Stead  saw  his  foes  fall  together 
into  the  dark  river  below.  With  a  mighty 
effort  the  chief,  who  was  at  the  head  of  the 
line,  reached  forward  to  clutch  the  solid 
earth.  His  hand  grasped  the  treasure-belt, 
which  had  lain  at  Mr.  Stead's  feet  all  through 
the  fight,  and  it  clasped  this  with  the  grip  of 
desperation.  In  the  sudden  emotion  of  de- 
liverance from  death,  Mr.  Stead  was  not 
prompt  enough  to  see  this  minor  danger, 
and  the  chief  of  the  White  Indians  bore 
with  him  to  the  bottom  of  the  turbulent 
river  the  gold  which  the  American  had 


"THE  CABLE  PARTED,  AND  HIS  FOES  FELL 
INTO  THE  RIVER  BELOW " 


TWO    LETTERS  129 

risked  his  life  to  save.  To  expect  ever  to 
recover  it  is  hopeless. 

There  is  no  need  to  delay  your  readers 
with  a  detailed  account  of  Mr.  Stead's  re- 
turn to  civilization.  As  soon  as  he  was  free 
from  the  danger  of  pursuit,  he  set  out  for 
the  village  of  friendly  Indians,  which  he 
found,  as  he  had  expected,  some  fifteen 
miles  farther  down  the  river.  Here  he  was 
well  received,  and  supplied  with  the  means 
of  continuing  his  journey. 

While  at  this  village  he  made  inquiry  for 
Austin,  who  had  basely  deserted  him  in  his 
hour  of  peril.  To  Mr.  Stead's  great  grief — 
although  not  at  all  to  his  surprise — he  found 
that  nothing  had  been  heard  of  Austin. 
And  as  yet  nothing  has  been  heard  of  the 
fellow.  It  was  nightfall  when  Austin  thrust 
loose  from  the  bank  and  started  alone  on 
his  voyage  down  the  river.  In  his  fright  it 
is  probable  that  he  forgot  the  rapids  before 
him  until  -it  was  too  late  to  turn  back,  or 
even  to  check  his  canoe.  Barely  a  mile  be- 
low the  point  where  he  abandoned  Mr.  Stead, 
the  river  becomes  narrow  and  the  banks  pre- 
cipitous, and  there  is  a  succession  of  cata- 

.9 


130  TWO    LETTERS 

racts.  It  was  above  this  gulch  that  Mr. 
Stead  fought  for  his  life,  and  it  was  proba- 
bly in  this  gulch  that  Austin  met  his  death 
by  the  wrecking  of  his  canoe  in  the  turmoil 
of  waters.  If  once  the  wood-skin  had  got 
caught  in  the  rush  of  the  rapids,  there  would 
be  no  possible  chance  of  escape  for  its  soli- 
tary occupant.  That  this  is  what  happened 
to  Austin  seems  now  beyond  doubt,  since 
no  other  explanation  of  his  disappear- 
ance is  possible.  Coward  as  the  fellow 
was,  it  is  sad  to  think  of  his  dark  and 
lonely  voyage  to  a  certain  and  horrible 
death. 

It  was  only  the  night  before  last  that  Mr. 
Stead  arrived  here  at  Georgetown.  Yester- 
day I  had  the  pleasure  of  meeting  him,  and 
of  hearing  the  full  tale  of  his  adventures 
from  his  own  lips.  In  transcribing  these  for 
your  readers  I  have  passed  the  night.  It 
seems  to  me  to  be  a  duty  which  a  man  of 
letters  owes  his  fellow-man  to  set  forth  sim- 
ply and  succinctly  so  brave  a  fight  against 
terrible  odds  as  that  which  Mr.  Stead  has 
just  fought.  It  is  the  study  of  a  strong 
character  like  his,  and  of  brave  deeds  like 


TWO    LETTERS  131 

this,  which  restores  our  faith  in  our  common 
humanity. 

I  have  thought  it  best  also  that  the  facts 
of  this  outrage  on  an  American  citizen  should 
be  laid  before  the  people  of  the  United 
States  as  soon  as  possible,  that  the  State 
Department  might  be  moved  to  take  prompt 
action. 

This  letter  goes  back  to  you  by  favor 
of  Mr.  Joshua  Hoffman,  whose  beautiful 
steam-yacht,  the  Rhadamanthus,  is  to  sail  for 
New  York  this  afternoon.  Mr.  Hoffman 
has  been  spending  a  fortnight  in  these 
waters ;  he  expresses  himself  as  delighted 
with  the  scenery,  and  much  benefited  in 
health  by  the  rest  he  has  obtained. 

I  expect  to  sail  for  the  Orinoco  early  next 
week,  and  you  shall  hear  from  me  again  at 
the  very  first  opportunity.  A.  Z. 


132  TWO    LETTERS 

II. 
FROM  THE  ''GOTHAM  GAZETTE"  OF  APRIL  22. 

OFFICE  OF  THE  ESSEQUIBO  GOLD  COMPANY, 
76  BROADWAY,  NEW  YORK,  April  21. 

To  THE  EDITOR  OF  THE  Gotham  Gazette: 

SIR, — I  have  read  with  interest  the  enter- 
taining letter  from  an  Occasional  Corre- 
spondent which  you  have  published  this 
morning,  and  which  purports  to  give  an  ac- 
count of  an  extraordinary  outrage  recently 
committed  in  British  Guiana  on  an  Ameri- 
can named  Stead  by  a  tribe  of  hitherto  un- 
known White  Indians.  I  hate  to  have  to 
spoil  so  sensational  a  story,  but  I  see  that 
there  is  a  sort  of  to-be-continued-in-our-next 
at  the  end  of  his  letter,  and  I  feel,  therefore, 
that  I  am  only  anticipating  the  correction 
the  Occasional  Correspondent  will  be  forced 
to  make  as  soon  as  he  knows  what  has  hap- 
pened since  he  wrote.  Perhaps  you  will 
excuse  me  if  I  suggest  that  before  writ- 
ing he  might  have  inquired  more  care- 


TWO    LETTERS  133 

fully  as  to  the  value  of  the  information  he 
received. 

What  has  happened  since  then  is  that  the 
man  Stead  was  arrested  yesterday  for  theft 
and  for  attempted  murder.  The  thing  he 
tried  to  steal  was  the  gold  intrusted  to  him 
to  convey  from  the  mines  to  the  coast.  The 
man  he  tried  to  murder  was  his  accomplice 
in  the  intended  theft — Austin. 

When  I  inform  you  that  Austin  is  in  New 
York,  that  he  has  confessed  fully  his  share 
in  the  robbery,  and  that  he  has  accused 
Stead  of  an  attempt  to  put  him  out  of  the 
way,  it  may  occur  to  some  of  those  who  may 
have  read  the  exciting  letter  of  the  Occa- 
sional Correspondent  that  he  is  a  gentleman 
of  an  unduly  confiding  nature,  and  that  he 
has  inadvertently  allowed  himself  to  be  used 
by  a  rascal. 

The  exact  facts  of  the  matter  are  that 
Stead  and  Austin,  being  intrusted  with  the 
gold  of  the  Essequibo  Gold  Company,  con- 
spired to  steal  it.  When  they  had  arrived 
near  the  canon  across  which  Stead  claims 
to  have  fought  so  brave  a  fight  against  such 
long  odds,  they  dug  a  hole  and  buried  the 


134  TWO   LETTERS 

gold,  Stead  telling  Austin  that  he  would  in- 
vent a  tale  of  an  attack  by  the  White  Ind- 
ians, who  exist  in  local  superstition,  but 
whom  nobody  has  ever  seen.  That  night  the 
thieves  fell  out,  and  Stead  set  Austin  adrift 
in  the  canoe  without  a  paddle,  knowing  that 
there  was  a  water -fall  ahead,  and  hoping 
that  his  accomplice  would  be  drowned.  Ap- 
parently Austin  is  reserved  for  another  fate ; 
his  canoe  sank  on  a  rock  in  shallow  water ; 
he  waded  ashore,  and  was  taken  up  by  a 
band  of  friendly  Indians,  with  whom  he 
journeyed  slowly  to  the  coast.  He  arrived 
at  Georgetown  about  midnight,  a  few  hours 
before  the  Rhadamanthus  sailed.  Going  to 
a  friend's  house,  he  heard  the  story  Stead 
had  been  telling,  and  in  fear  of  his  life  he 
determined  to  fly  the  country.  This  friend 
had  done  some  trifling  service  for  Mr. 
Joshua  Hoffman,  and  thus  Austin  succeeded 
in  being  taken  aboard  the  Rhadamanthus 
without  the  knowledge  of  the  people  of 
Georgetown.  There  is  a  pleasant  irony  in 
the  fact  that  the  very  yacht  which  bore 
away  the  Occasional  Correspondent's  ac- 
count of  Stead's  single-handed  combat  with 


TWO   LETTERS  135 

impossible  White  Indians  over  a  non-exist- 
ent bridge  should  convey  also  the  one  man 
who  knew  the  whole  truth. 

On  his  arrival  here  yesterday  Austin  came 
down  to  the  office  of  the  Essequibo  Gold 
Company  and  surrendered  himself.  He  made 
a  clean  breast  of  his  share  in  the  attempt  to 
rob  the  company.  We  cabled  at  once  to  the 
Georgetown  police.  We  learned  that  Stead 
had  been  away  in  the  interior  for  a  week, 
and  that  he  had  just  returned.  He  was 
about  to  take  ship  for  England  when  he  was 
arrested.  The  stolen  gold  was  found  in  his 
possession. 

I  have  to  apologize  for  this  trespass  on 
your  space,  but  enemies  of  the  Essequibo 
Gold  Company  try  to  use  ghost  stories  like 
that  of  the  Occasional  Correspondent  to  de- 
press the  securities  of  the  company,  and  as 
its  president  it  is  my  duty  to  prevent  this. 
Besides,  just  now  I  am  a  bull  on  the  market. 
Your  obedient  servant, 

SAMUEL  SARGENT. 
(1888.) 


THE  NEW  MEMBER  OF  THE  CLUB 


THE  NEW  MEMBER  OF  THE  CLUB 


THE  FIRST  SATURDAY. 

SOMETHING  must  have  detained  me  that 
evening,  since  it  was  nearly  midnight  when 
I  arrived  at  the  club,  and  I  hate  to  be  so 
tardy  as  that,  for  some  of  our  best  members 
are  married  men  now,  who  never  stay  out 
after  one  o'clock,  or  two  at  the  very  furthest. 
Besides,  the  supper  is  served  at  eleven,  and 
the  first  comers  take  all  the  pleasant  little 
tables  which  line  the  walls  of  the  grill-room, 
leaving  for  the  belated  arrivals  only  the 
large  table  which  runs  down  the  middle  of 
the  room. 

As  every  one  knows,  ours  is  a  club  whose 
members  mainly  belong  to  the  allied  arts. 
Of  course,  now  and  then  a  millionaire  man- 


140      THE   NEW   MEMBER   OF   THE   CLUB 

ages  to  get  elected  by  passing  himself  off  as 
an  art-patron ;  but  for  the  most  part,  the 
men  one  meets  there  are  authors,  actors, 
architects,  and  artists  on  canvas  or  in  mar- 
ble. So  it  is  that  the  supper  served  at 
eleven  every  Saturday  night,  from  October 
to  May,  is  the  occasion  of  many  a  pleasant 
meeting  with  friends  who  happen  in  quite 
informally.  When  the  week's  work  is  done, 
it  is  good  to  have  a  place  to  forgather  with 
one's  fellows — a  place  where  one  can  eat, 
and  drink,  and  smoke,  a  place  where  one 
can  sit  in  a  cosey  corner,  and  talk  shop,  and 
swap  stories. 

I  cannot  now  recall  the  reason  why  I  was 
late  on  the  evening  in  question,  nor  just 
what  evening  it  was,  although  I  am  sure 
that  it  was  after  Founder's  Night  (which  is 
New-year's  Eve),  and  before  Ladies'  Day 
(which  is  Shakespeare's  birthday).  I  remem- 
ber only  that  it  was  nearly  midnight,  and 
that  as  I  entered  the  reading-room  I  was 
hailed  by  Astroyd,  the  actor. 

"I  say,  Arthur,"  he  cried,  "you  are  the 
very  man  we  want  to  take  the  third  seat  at 
our  table.  You  must  have  a  bird  and  a 


THE    NEW    MEMBER    OF    THE    CLUB        141 

bottle  with  me  to-night,  for  this  is  the  last 
evening  I  shall  have  at  the  club  for  many  a 
long  day." 

"  Are  you  going  on  the  road  again  ?"  I 
asked,  with  interest;  for  I  liked  Astroyd, 
and  I  knew  we  should  all  regret  his  de- 
parture. 

"  I'm  off  for  Australia,  that's  where  I'm  go- 
ing," he  answered  ;  "thirty  per  cent,  of  the 
gross,  with  five  hundred  a  week  guaranteed. 
I  take  the  vestibule  limited  at  ten  in  the 
morning,  and  I'm  not  half  packed  yet.  So 
we  must  get  over  supper  at  once.  Besides, 
I  want  you  to  meet  a  friend  of  mine." 

Then,  for  the  first  time,  I  noticed  the 
gentleman  who  was  standing  by  the  side  of 
Astroyd,  a  little  behind  him.  The  actor 
stepped  back  and  introduced  us  : — 

"  Mr.  Harrington  Cockshaw,  Mr.  Arthur 
Penn." 

As  we  shook  hands,  Astroyd  added, 
"  Cockshaw  is  a  new  member  of  the  club." 

At  that  moment  one  of  the  waiters  came 
up  to  tell  the  actor  that  the  table  he  had 
asked  for  was  vacant  at  last,  whereupon  we 
all  three  went  into  the  grill-room,  and  sat 


142       THE   NEW   MEMBER   OF   THE   CLUB 

down  to  our  supper  at  once.  I  had  just 
time  to  note  that  Mr.  Cockshaw  was  an  in- 
significant little  man  with  a  bristling,  sandy 
mustache.  When  he  took  his  place  opposite 
to  me  I  saw  that  he  had  light-brown  eyes, 
and  that  his  expression  suggested  a  strange 
admixture  of  shyness  and  self-assertion. 

While  the  waiter  was  drawing  the  cork, 
Mr.  Cockshaw  bent  forward,  and  said,  with 
the  merest  hint  of  condescension  in  his 
manner,  "  I'm  delighted  to  meet  you  this 
evening,  Mr.  Penn,  partly  because  just  this 
very  afternoon  I  have  been  reading  your 
admirable  essay  'On  the  Sonnet  and  its 
History.' " 

I  was  about  to  murmur  my  appreciation 
of  this  complimentary  coincidence  when  As- 
troyd  broke  in. 

"Arthur  knows  a  sonnet  when  he  sees 
it,"  he  said,  "and  he  can  turn  off  as 
good  a  topical  song  as  any  man  in  New 
York." 

"I  can't  write,  myself,"  Mr.  Cockshaw 
went  on ;  "I  wish  I  could — though  I  don't 
suppose  anybody  would  read  it  if  I  did. 
But  my  brother-in-law  is  connected  with 


THE   NEW   MEMBER   OF   THE   CLUB       143 

literature,  in  a  way;  he's  a  publisher;  he's 
the  Co.  of  Carpenter  &  Co." 

Just  then  Astroyd  caught  sight  of  Harry 
Brackett  standing  in  the  broad  doorway. 

"Here  you  are,  Harry,"  he  cried;  "join 
us.  Have  a  stirrup-cup  with  me.  I  haven't 
seen  you  for  moons — not  for  'steen  moons 
— and  I'm  off  for  Australia  to-morrow  by  the 
bright  light." 

"Isn't  America  good  enough  for  you?"  ask- 
ed Harry  Brackett,  as  he  lounged  over  to  us. 

"Not  at  the  beginning  of  next  season, 
it  isn't,"  the  actor  declared.  "  Electing  a 
President  of  these  United  States  is  more 
fun  than  a  farce-comedy,  and  for  two  weeks 
before  the  Tuesday  following  the  first  Mon- 
day in  November  you  can't  club  people  into 
the  theatre." 

"That's  so,  sometimes,"  responded  Harry, 
as  Astroyd  and  I  made  room  for  him  at  our 
little  table ;  "  and  I  don't  see  how  we  are 
going  to  keep  up  public  interest  in  Gettys- 
burg next  fall,  unless  there's  an  old-time 
bloody-shirt  campaign.  If  there  is,  I'll  get  a 
phonograph,  and  agree  to  let  every  visitor  to 
the  panorama  sample  a  genuine  Rebel  yell." 


144       THE   NEW    MEMBER    OF   THE   CLUB 

Astroyd  caught  the  expression  of  per- 
plexity that  flitted  across  the  face  of  the 
new  member  of  the  club,  so  he  made  haste 
to  introduce  the  new-comer. 

"  Mr.  Brackett,  Mr.  Cockshaw,"  he  said  ; 
adding  as  they  bowed,  "  Mr.  Brackett  is 
now  the  manager  of  the  panorama  of  the 
Battle  of  Gettysburg." 

"  And  I'm  going  to  be  buried  on  the  field 
of  battle,"  Harry  Brackett  interjected,  "  if  I 
can't  scare  up  some  new  way  to  boom  the 
thing  soon." 

"  I  should  not  think  that  so  fine  a  work 
of  art  would  need  any  booming,"  Mr.  Cock- 
shaw smilingly  remarked.  "  I  had  the  pleas- 
ure of  going  in  to  see  it  again  only  yester- 
day. It  is  a  great  painting,  extraordinarily 
vivid,  exactly  like  the  real  thing — at  least  so 
I  am  told.  I  was  not  at  the  battle  myself, 
but  my  brother-in-law  commanded  a  North 
Carolina  brigade  in  Pickett's  charge;  he 
lost  a  leg  there." 

"I  don't  know  but  what  a  one-legged 
Confederate  might  draw,"  Harry  Brackett 
soliloquized.  "  The  lecturer  we  have  now 
is  no  good:  he  gives  his  celebrated  imita- 


THE   NEW    MEMBER   OF   THE   CLUB       145 

tion  of  a  wounded  soldier  drinking  out  of  a 
canteen  so  often  and  so  realistically  that 
he  is  always  on  the  diminuendo  of  a  jag — 
when  he  isn't  on  the  crescendo." 

"  If  he  gets  loaded,"  said  Astroyd,  prompt- 
ly, "why  don't  you  fire  him  ?" 

"  It's  all  very  well  for  you  to  make  jokes," 
Harry  Brackett  returned,  "  but  it  isn't  easy 
to  get  a  lecturer  who  really  looks  like  an 
old  soldier.  Besides,  his  name  is  worth 
something ;  it  is  so  short  that  we  can  print 
it  in  big  letters  on  a  single  line — Colonel 
Mark  Day.  I  shouldn't  wonder  if  he  had 
the  two  shortest  names  in  all  the  United 
States." 

"It  is  a  short  name,"  said  the  little  man, 
as  though  pleased  to  get  into  conversation 
again.  "It  is  a  very  short  name,  indeed. 
But  I  know  a  shorter.  My  brother-in-law 
has  one  letter  less  in  his,  and  one  syllable 
more.  His  name  is  Eli  Low." 

Harry  Brackett  looked  at  the  new  mem- 
ber of  the  club  for  a  moment  as  though  he 
were  going  to  make  a  pertinent  reply.  Then 
apparently  he  thought  better  of  it,  and  said 
nothing. 


146       THE  NEW   MEMBER   OF   THE   CLUB 

As  the  conversation  flagged  I  asked  As- 
troyd  if  he  was  going  to  act  in  San  Fran- 
cisco on  his  way  to  Australia. 

"  No,"  he  answered ;  "  I  go  straight  through 
without  stopping,  but  I've  got  two  weeks  at 
'Frisco  coming  home,  and  I  shall  play  my 
way  back  over  the  Northern  Pacific.  You 
know  Duluth  and  Superior  are  both  three- 
night  stands  now." 

"  San  Francisco  is  falling  off  every  year," 
Harry  Brackett  commented.  "The  flush 
times  are  all  over  on  the  coast.  I  remem- 
ber the  days  when  a  big  attraction  could 
play  to  ten  thousand  dollars  three  weeks 
running." 

"  Yes,"  Astroyd  assented ;  "  'Frisco  is  not 
the  show-town  it  used  to  be,  though  we  took 
nineteen  thousand  three  hundred  and  forty 
in  two  weeks,  last  time  I  was  there." 

"  Perhaps  somebody  will  strike  another 
bonanza  before  you  get  back,"  I  suggested ; 
"  and  if  there  is  another  boom  you  can  do  a 
big  business." 

"I  came  near  going  out  to  the  Pacific 
coast  last  sunyner,"  said  Mr.  Cockshaw,  "  to 
look  after  a  chicken -ranch  I'm  interested  in 


THE   NEW   MEMBER   OF    THE    CLUB       147 

near  Monotony  Dam.  Somehow  I  couldn't 
find  time  to  get  away,  so  I  had  to  give  it  up. 
But  my  brother-in-law  was  an  old  Forty- 
niner,  and  he  told  me  he  once  found  a 
seven-pound  nugget  in  a  pocket.  He  had 
a  claim  at  a  camp  called  Hell-to-pay." 

"  I've  played  there  in  the  old  days,"  As- 
troyd  remarked,  promptly.  "We  did  '  Ham- 
let '  on  a  stage  made  of  two  billiard-tables 
shoved  back  to  the  end  of  the  biggest  saloon 
in  the  camp.  But  the  place  experienced 
a  change  of  heart  long  ago ;  it  has  three 
churches  now,  and  calls  itself  Eltopia  to- 
day." 

"  It  was  a  pretty  tough  town  in  my  broth- 
er-in-law's time,"  the  little  man  declared. 
"He  told  me  he  had  often  seen  two  and 
three  men  shot  in  a  morning." 

I  had  noticed  that  when  Mr.  Cockshaw 
mentioned  the  strange  luck  of  his  brother- 
in-law's  finding  an  extraordinary  nugget  in  a 
pocket,  Harry  Brackett  had  looked  up  and 
fixed  his  eyes  on  the  face  of  the  little  man 
as  though  to  spy  out  a  contradiction  be- 
tween Mr.  Cockshaw's  expression  and  his 
conversation.  So  when  our  little  party 


148       THE   NEW    MEMBER    OF   THE   CLUB 

broke  up,  and  Astroyd  had  said  farewell 
and  departed,  taking  Cockshaw  with  him, 
I  was  not  at  all  surprised  to  have  the  mana- 
ger of  the  panorama  stop  me  as  I  was  mak- 
ing ready  to  go  home. 

"  I  say,  Arthur,"  he  began,  "  who  is  that 
little  fellow,  anyhow — the  one  with  the  al- 
leged brother-in-law  ?" 

I  answered  that  I  had  never  met  Mr. 
Cockshaw  until  that  evening,  and  that  As- 
troyd had  declared  him  to  be  a  new  member 
of  the  club. 

"  Then  that's  why  I  haven't  seen  him  be- 
fore," Harry  Brackett  responded.  "Queer 
little  cuss,  isn't  he  ?  Somehow  he  looked 
as  though  he  might  be  a  dealer  in  misfit 
coffins,  or  something  of  that  sort.  And  the 
way  he  kept  blowing  about  that  brother-in- 
law  of  his  would  make  a  stuffed  bird  laugh. 
I  wonder  what  his  business  really  is.  What's 
more,  I  wonder  who  he  is." 

To  satisfy  this  curiosity  of  Harry's  we 
asked  a  dozen  different  men  if  they  knew 
anything  about  a  new  member  of  the  club 
named  Cockshaw,  and  we  found  that  no- 
body had  ever  heard  of  him.  Apparently 


THE   NEW   MEMBER   OF   THE   CLUB       149 

Astroyd  had  been  the  only  man  there  he 
had  ever  seen  before  that  evening. 

Harry  Brackett  finally  sent  for  the  pro- 
posal book,  to  see  who  had  been  his  spon- 
sors. He  found  that  J.  Harrington  Cock- 
shaw,  Retired,  had  been  proposed  by  Mr. 
Joshua  Hoffman,  the  millionaire  philanthro- 
pist, and  that  he  had  been  seconded  by  John 
Abram  Carkendale,  the  second  vice-presi- 
dent of  the  Methuselah  Life  Insurance 
Company.  But  we  could  not  ask  them 
about  him,  because  old  Mr.  Hoffman  was 
on  his  steam -yacht  Rhadamanthus  in  the 
Mediterranean,  somewhere  between  Gibral- 
tar and  Cairo ;  and  Mr.  Carkendale  was  out 
west,  somewhere  between  Denver  and  Salt 
Lake  City,  on  his  semi-annual  tour  of  in- 
spection of  the  agencies x>f  the  Methuselah 
Life.  And  Astroyd,  who  had  introduced 
him  to  us,  and  who  might  fairly  be  pre- 
sumed to  be  able  to  give  us  some  informa- 
tion concerning  the  new  member,  was  about 
to  start  for  Australia. 

"  So  all  we  know  about  him,"  said  Harry 
Brackett,  summing  up  the  result  of  our  re- 
searches, "  is  that  his  name  is  J.  Harrington 


150       THE   NEW   MEMBER   OF   THE   CLUB 

Cockshaw,  that  he  is  Retired  —  whatever 
that  may  mean  —  that  he  knows  Joshua 
Hoffman  and  John  Abram  Carkendale  well 
enough  to  have  them  propose  him  here,  and 
that  he  has  a  brother-in-law,  whose  name  is 
Eli  Low,  who  was  in  California  in  '49,  who 
lost  a  leg  at  Gettysburg  in  Pickett's  charge, 
and  who  is  now  a  partner  in  the  publishing 
house  of  Carpenter  &  Co." 

And  with  that  information  Harry  Brackett 
had  then  perforce  to  be  content. 


II. 
THE  SECOND  SATURDAY. 

The  next  Saturday  evening  I  arrived  at 
the  club  a  little  earlier.  I  had  been  dining 
with  Delancey  Jones,  the  architect,  and  we 
played  piquet  at  his  house  for  a  couple  of 
hours  after  dinner.  When  we  entered  the 
club  together  it  was  scarcely  half-past  ten ; 
and  yet  we  found  half  a  dozen  regular  Sat- 
urday night  attendants  already  gathered  to- 
gether in  the  main  hall  just  beside  the  huge 


THE    NEW    MEMBER   OF    THE   CLUB        151 

fireplace  emblazoned  with  the  motto  of  the 
club.  Starrington,  the  tragedian,  was  one 
of  the  group,  and  Judge  Gillespie  was  an- 
other; Rupert  de  Ruyter,  the  novelist,  was 
a  third,  and  John  Sharp,  the  young  African 
explorer,  was  a  fourth  ;  while  Harry  Brackett 
sat  back  on  a  broad  sofa  by  the  side  of  Mr. 
Harrington  Cockshaw,  the  new  member  of 
the  club. 

When  we  joined  the  party  the  judge  was 
describing  the  methods  and  the  machinery 
of  a  gang  of  safe-breakers  whom  he  had  re- 
cently sent  to  Sing  Sing  for  a  bank  burg- 
lary. 

"  The  bank  almost  deserved  to  be  robbed," 
the  judge  concluded,  "  because  it  had  not 
availed  itself  of  the  latest  improvements  in 
safe-building." 

"  When  a  bank  gets  a  chilled-iron  safe,  it's 
a  cold  day  for  the  burglar,  I  suppose,"  said 
Rupert  de  Ruyter,  who  occasionally  conde- 
scended to  a  trifling  jest  of  this  sort. 

"  A  chilled  -  iron  safe  is  better  than  a 
wooden  desk,  of  course,"  Harry  Brackett 
remarked  ;  "  but  the  safe-breakers  keep  al- 
most even  with  the  safe-makers.  With  a 


152       THE    NEW    MEMBER    OF    THE    CLUB 

kit  of  the  latest  tools  a  burglar  can  get  into 
pretty  nearly  anything — except  the  kingdom 
of  Heaven." 

"  And  it  is  almost  as  hard  to  get  a  really 
fire-proof  safe  as  it  is  to  get  one  burglar- 
proof,"  said  Jones.  "  The  building  I  put 
up  for  a  fire-insurance  company  out  in  New- 
ark two  years  ago  burned  down  before  the 
carpenters  were  out  of  it,  although  the  com- 
pany had  moved  into  its  own  office  on  the 
first  floor,  and  about  half  of  the  books  in 
the  safe  were  charred  into  uselessness,  like 
the  manuscripts  of  Herculaneum." 

"  I  was  never  burned  out,  myself,"  Mr. 
Cockshaw  declared,  taking  advantage  of  a 
lull  in  the  conversation,  "but  my  brother- 
in-law  was  president  of  a  lumber  company 
in  Chicago  at  the  time  of  the  great  fire  ;  and 
he  told  me  that  most  of  the  books  of  the 
firm  were  destroyed,  but  that  wherever  there 
had  been  any  writing  in  pencil  this  was  legi- 
ble, even  though  the  paper  itself  was  burned 
to  a  crisp,  while  the  writing  in  ink  had  been 
usually  obliterated  by  the  heat." 

The  hint  of  self-assertion  which  might 
have  been  detected  in  Mr.  Cockshaw's 


THE    NEW    MEMBER   OF    THE   CLUB        153 

manner  a  week  before  had  now  totally  dis- 
appeared, as  though  he  felt  himself  quite 
at  home  in  the  club  already,  and  had  no 
need  to  defend  his  position.  His  manner 
was  wholly  unobtrusive  and  almost  depre- 
catory. There  was  even  a  certain  vague 
hesitancy  of  speech  which  I  had  not  no- 
ticed when  we  had  met  before.  His  voice 
was  smooth,  as  though  to  match  his  smooth 
face,  clean-shaven  except  for  the  faint  little 
mustache  which  bristled  above  the  full  lips. 
So  soft-spoken  had  he  been  that  only 
Harry  Brackett  and  I  had  heard  this  con- 
tribution of  his  to  the  conversation ;  and 
under  the  lead  of  Judge  Gillespie  the  talk 
turned  off  from  the  ways  of  burglars  to  the 
treatment  of  criminals,  and  thus  to  the 
rights  and  wrongs  of  prisoners.  Something 
that  Rupert  de  Ruyter  said  started  off  John 
Sharp — usually  taciturn  and  disinclined  to 
talk — and  he  began  by  denouncing  the  evils 
of  the  slave-hunting  raids  the  Arabs  make 
in  Africa.  To  show  us  just  how  hideous, 
how  vile,  how  inhuman  a  thing  slavery  is, 
he  was  led  to  describe  to  us  one  of  his  own 
experiences  in  the  heart  of  the  dark  conti- 


154       THE   NEW   MEMBER   OF   THE   CLUB 

nent,  and  to  tell  us  how  he  had  followed  for 
days  on  the  heels  of  a  slave-caravan,  finding 
it  easy  to  keep  the  trail  because  of  the  half- 
dozen  or  more  corpses  he  passed  every  day 
— corpses  of  slaves,  women  and  men,  who 
fell  out  of  the  ranks  from  weakness,  and 
who  either  had  been  killed  outright  or  else 
allowed  to  die  of  starvation. 

We  all  listened  with  hitense  interest  as 
John  Sharp  told  us  what  he  had  seen,  for  it 
was  a  rare  thing  for  him  to  speak  about  his 
African  experiences ;  sometimes  I  had  won- 
dered whether  they  were  not  too  painful  for 
him  willingly  to  recall  them. 

"  I  wish  I  could  go  to  Africa,"  said  Ru- 
pert de  Ruyter.  "  I  know  that  it  is  a  land  of 
battle,  murder,  and  sudden  death,  but  I  be- 
lieve that  a  picture  of  the  life  there  under 
the  equator,  a  faithful  presentment  of  exist- 
ence as  it  is,  as  direct  and  as  simple  as  one 
could  make  it — I  believe  a  story  of  that  sort 
might  easily  make  as  big  a  hit  as  Unck 
Tom's  Cabin. 

"  And  it  might  do  as  much  good,"  said 
the  judge.  "There  is  no  hope  for  Africa 
till  the  slave-trade  is  rooted  put  absolutely. 


THE   NEW    MEMBER   OF   THE   CLUB       155 

Until  that  is  done  once  for  all,  this  send- 
ing out  of  missionaries  is  a  mere  waste  of 
money." 

"  Yet  the  missionaries  at  least  set  an  ex- 
ample of  courage  and  self-sacrifice,"  sug- 
gested Mr.  Cockshaw,  timidly.  "  Of  course 
I  don't  know  anything  about  the  matter  per- 
sonally, but  my  brother-in-law  was  with  Stan- 
ley on  that  search  for  Livingstone,  and  I  am 
merely  repeating  what  I  have  heard  him  say 
often." 

After  the  new  member  of  the  club  had 
said  this,  I  became  conscious  immediately 
that  Harry  Brackett  was  gazing  at  me  in- 
tently. At  last  I  looked  up,  and  when  he 
caught  my  eye  he  winked.  I  glanced  away 
at  once,  but  I  was  at  no  loss  to  interpret 
the  meaning  of  this  signal. 

For  a  while  the  talk  rambled  along  un- 
eventfully, and  then  some  one  suddenly 
suggested  supper.  Ten  minutes  thereafter 
our  little  gathering  was  dissolved.  Judge 
Gillespie  and  John  Sharp  had  gone  up  into 
the  library  to  consult  a  new  map  of  Africa. 
Starrington  and  de  Ruyter  had  secured  a 
little  table  in  the  grill-room,  and  pending 


156       THE   NEW    MEMBER    OF    THE   CLUB 

the  arrival  of  the  ingredients  for  the  Welsh 
rabbits  (for  the  making  of  which  the  novel- 
ist was  famous),  they  were  deep  in  a  discus- 
sion of  the  play  which  the  actor  wished  to 
have  written  for  him.  Mr.  Cockshaw,  Har- 
ry Brackett,  Delancey  Jones,  and  I  had 
made  ourselves  comfortable  at  a  round 
table  in  the  bow -window  of  the  grill- 
room. 

Perhaps  it  was  the  pewter  mugs  depend- 
ing from  the  hooks  below  the  shelf  which 
ran  all  around  the  room  at  the  top  of  the 
wainscot  which  suggested  to  Harry  Brackett 
mugs  of  another  kind,  for  he  suddenly 
turned  on  Jones  abruptly. 

"  And  how  are  the  twins  ?"  he  asked. 

"  The  twins  are  all  right,"  Jones  answer- 
ed, "and  so  am  I,  thank  you." 

"  And  how  old  are  they  now  ?"  Harry 
Brackett  inquired  further. 

"  Two  months,"  the  happy  parent  re- 
sponded. 

"  To  think  of  you  with  a  pair  of  twins," 
mused  the  manager  of  the  panorama.  "  I 
believe  you  said  there  was  a  pair  of  them  ?" 

"  I  suppose  I  did  suggest  that    number 


THE   NEW    MEMBER   OF   THE   CLUB        157 

when  I  revealed  the  fact  that  my  family 
had  been  increased  by  twins." 

"  Well,  I  never  thought  it  of  you,  I  con- 
fess," Harry  Brackett  continued.  "You 
are  an  architect  by  profession,  a  lover  of 
the  picturesque,  an  admirer  of  all  that  is 
beautiful  in  an  odd  and  unexpected  way ; 
and  so  I  never  dreamed  that  you  would  do 
anything  so  commonplace  as  to  have  two 
babies  just  alike,  and  of  just  the  same  size, 
and  the  same  age." 

"  It  is  queer,  I  admit,"  Jones  retorted ; 
"but  then  this  is  leap-year,  you  know,  and 
there  are  always  more  twins  born  in  leap- 
year  than  in  any  other  year." 

"I  never  heard  that  before,"  Harry 
Brackett  declared.  "  I  wonder  why  it  is  ?" 

"Perhaps,"  said  the  architect,  as  he  took 
down  his  own  pewter  mug,  "it  is  simply  be- 
cause leap-year  is  one  day  longer  than  any 
other  year." 

"Oh!"  ejaculated  the  man  who  had  let 
himself  into  this  trap ;  then  he  rang  a  bell 
on  the  table,  and  told  the  waiter  who  came 
in.  response  to  take  Mr.  Jones's  order. 

"  I  wonder  whether   the   prevalence    of 


158       THE   NEW   MEMBER   OF   THE   CLUB 

twins  has  anything  to  do  with  the  periodic- 
ity of  the  spots  on  the  sun,"  I  suggested. 
"  Almost  every  other  phenomenon  has  been 
ascribed  to  this  cause." 

"  I  believe  that  the  statistics  of  twins 
have  never  been  properly  investigated,"  re- 
marked Mr.  Cockshaw,  gently.  "  I  have 
not  studied  the  subject  myself,  but  my 
brother-in-law  was  a  pupil  of  Spitzer's  in 
Vienna,  and  he  was  much  interested  in  the 
matter.  He  was  preparing  a  paper  in 
which  he  set  forth  a  theory  of  his  own,  and 
he  was  going  to  read  it  at  the  Medical  Con- 
ference in  Vienna  during  the  Exhibition  of 
1873,  but  unfortunately  he  died  ten  days 
before  the  conference  met." 

"  Who  died  ?"  Harry  Brackett  asked  with 
startling  directness — "  Spitzer  or  your  broth- 
er-in-law ?" 

"  Dr.  Spitzer  is  alive  still,"  the  new  mem- 
ber answered ;  "  it  was  my  brother-in-law 
who  died." 

"  I'm  glad  of  that,"  said  Harry  Brackett 
to  me,  scarcely  lowering  his  voice,  although 
apparently  Mr.  Cockshaw  did  not  hear 
him.  "  If  he's  dead  and  buried,  per- 


THE    NEW    MEMBER   OF   THE   CLUB        159 

haps  we  sha'n't  hear  anything  more  about 
him." 

And  it  was  a  fact  that  although  we  four, 
Jones  and  I,  Cockshaw  and  Harry  Brack- 
ett,  sat  at  that  little  table  in  the  grill-room 
for  perhaps  two  hours  longer,  and  then 
went  back  into  the  hall  for  another  smoke, 
we  did  not  hear  the  new  member  of  the 
club  refer  again  that  night  to  his  brother- 
in-law. 


III. 

THE  THIRD  SATURDAY. 

A  week  later  I  was  sitting  in  my  study, 
trying  to  polish  into  lilting  smoothness  a 
tale  in  verse  which  I  had  written  for  the 
Christmas  number  of  The  Metropolis ;  and 
in  my  labors  on  this  lyric  legend  I  had 
quite  forgotten  that  it  was  Saturday  night. 
I  had  just  laid  down  my  pen  with  the  con- 
viction that  whether  the  poem  was  good  or 
bad,  it  was,  at  least,  the  best  I  could  do, 
when  Harry  Brackett  broke  in  on  me,  and 
insisted  on  bearing  me  off  to  the  club. 


160       THE   NEW    MEMBER   OF    THE   CLUB 

"  I  want  you  to  be  there  to-night,"  he  as- 
serted, "  for  a  particular  reason." 

But  what  this  particular  reason  might  be 
he  refused  to  declare.  I  ventured  on  a 
guess  at  it,  when  we  were  on  our  way  to  the 
club  wrapped  in  our  rain-coats,  and  trusting 
to  a  single  umbrella  to  shield  us  both  from 
the  first  spring-squall. 

"  I  lunched  at  the  club  to-day,"  he  said 
casually,  just  after  a  sudden  gust  of  wind 
had  turned  our  umbrella  inside  out,  "  and  I 
heard  that  man  Cockshaw  telling  Laurence 
Laughton  that  he  had  never  seen  a  great 
race  himself,  but  that  his  brother-in-law  had 
been  in  Louisville  when  Tenbroeck  beat 
Molly  Macarthy." 

"That's  why  you  are  haling  me  to  the 
club  through  this  storm,"  I  cried.  "You 
want  a  companion  to  help  you  listen  to  Mr. 
Cockshaw's  statements." 

"  I  want  you  to  be  there  to-night,"  he  an- 
swered. "  4nd  you  will  soon  see  why  last 
Saturday,  when  I  heard  that  that  brother- 
in-law  of  Cockshaw's  was  dead,  I  gave  a 
sigh  of  relief.  I  thought  we  were  quit  of 
him  for  good  and  all.  But  we  are  not. 


THE   NEW   MEMBER   OF   THE   CLUB       161 

It  was  not  Wednesday  before  Cockshaw 
had  resurrected  the  corpse,  and  galvanized 
it  into  spasmodic  existence.  Every  night 
this  week  he  has  been  dining  at  the  club." 

"  The  brother-in-law  ?"  I  asked. 

"  No,"  he  replied,  "  only  Cockshaw.  If  I 
could  see  the  brother-in-law  there  in  the 
flesh,  I'd  pay  for  his  dinner  with  pleasure. 
But  that's  a  sight  I  can  never  hope  to  be- 
hold. The  man  has  had  too  many  strange 
experiences  to  survive.  Why,  do  you  know 
— but  there,  I  can't  tell  you  half  the  things 
Cockshaw  has  told  us  now  and  again  during 
the  past  week.  All  I  can  say  is  that  he  has 
literally  exuded  miscellaneous  misinforma- 
tion about  that  alleged  brother-in-law  of  his. 
No  more  remarkable  man  ever  lived  since 
the  Admirable  Crichton — and  I  never  heard 
that  he  had  nine  lives  like  a  cat." 

I  deprecated  Harry  Brackett's  heat  in 
speaking  of  Cockshaw,  and  I  tol£  him  that 
I  thought  the  new  member  of  the  club  was 
a  most  modest  and  unassuming  little  man. 

"  That's  just  what  is  so  annoying,"  re- 
turned my  companion.  "  If  he  put  on 
frills,  and  lied  about  himself  and  his  own 


162       THE   NEW   MEMBER    OF   THE   CLUB 

surprising  adventures,  I  could  forgive  him ; 
but  there  it  is  —  the  little  semicolon  of  a 
cuss  never  boasts  about  his  own  deeds ;  he 
just  caps  all  our  stories  with  some  wild, 
weird  tale  of  his  brother-in-law's  doings.  It 
is  the  meanest  trick  out.  Do  you  believe 
he  ever  had  a  brother-in-law  ?" 

This  query  was  propounded  as  we  stood 
before  the  door  of  the  club. 

"  Why  shouldn't  I  ?"  was  my  answer. 

"Oh,  you  carry  credulity  to  an  extreme," 
Harry  Brackett  responded  as  he  shut  his 
umbrella.  "  Now  I  don't.  I  don't  believe 
this  man  Cockshaw  ever  had  a  brother-in- 
law,  alive  or  dead,  white  or  black.  What's 
more,  I  don't  believe  that  he  ever  had  either  a 
wife  or  a  sister ;  and  unless  he  was  aided  or 
abetted  by  a  wife  or  a  sister  he  couldn't 
have  had  a  brother-in-law,  could  he  ?" 

"  If  he  chooses  to  invent  a  brother-in-law 
to  brag  about,  why  shouldn't  he  ?"  I  asked. 
"  There's  many  a  man  who  has  written  a 
book  to  glorify  the  great  deeds  of  some  re- 
mote ancestor  from  whom  his  own  descent 
was  more  than  doubtful." 

"  I  know  that,"  Harry  Brackett  respond- 


THE    NEW   MEMBER   OF   THE   CLUB       163 

ed,  as  we  entered  the  club  and  gave  our 
storm-coats  to  the  attendants  ;  "  and  I  know 
also  that  there  are  men  so  lost  to  all  sense 
of  the  proprieties  of  life  that  they  insist  on 
telling  you  the  latest  ignorant  and  im- 
pertinent remarks  of  their  sons  of  six 
and  their  daughters  of  five.  But  I  hold 
these  to  be  among  the  most  pestilent  of 
our  species  —  less  pestilent  only  than  a 
man  who  tells  tales  about  his  brother-in- 
law." 

I  said  nothing  in  reply  to  this ;  but  my 
reserve  did  not  check  the  flow  of  Harry 
Brackett's  discourse. 

"All  the  same/'  he  went  on,  "people 
have  ancestors  and  they  have  children,  and 
to  boast  about  these  is  natural  enough,  I'm 
afraid.  But  a  brother-in-law !  Why  blow 
about  a  brother-in-law  ?  Of  course  it  is  a 
novelty — at  least  I  never  heard  of  any- 
body's working  this  brother-in-law  racket 
except  Cockshaw.  And  I'll  admit  that  it 
is  a  good  act,  too :  with  an  adroit  use  of  the 
brother-in-law  Cockshaw  can  magnify  him- 
self till  he  is  as  great  a  man  as  the  Emperor 
of  China,  who  is  nephew  of  the  moon,  great- 


164       THE   NEW   MEMBER   OF   THE   CLUB 

grandson  of  the  sun,  and  second  cousin  to 
all  the  stars  of  the  sky !" 

I  protested  against  the  vehemence  of 
Harry  Brackett's  manner,  without  avail. 

"But  he's  got  to  be  more  careful,"  he 
continued,  "or  he'll  wear  him  out;  the 
brother-in  law  will  get  used  up  before  the 
little  man  gets  out  half  there  is  in  him.  No 
brother-in-law  will  stand  the  wear  and  tear 
Cockshaw  is  putting  on  him.  Why,  within 
a  fortnight  he  has  told  us  that  his  brother- 
in-law  climbed  the  Jungfrau  in  1853,  lost  a 
leg  in  Pickett's  charge  in  1863,  and  went 
down  in  the  Tecumseh  in  1864.  Now  I  say 
that  a  brother-in-law  who  can  do  all  those 
things  is  beyond  nature;  he  is  a  freak:  he 
ought  not  to  be  talked  about  at  this  club ; 
he  ought  to  be  exhibited  at  a  dime  muse- 
um." 

I  tried  to  explain  that  it  was  perhaps 
possible  for  a  man  to  have  climbed  a  Swiss 
mountain,  and  to  have  been  wounded  at 
Gettysburg,  and  to  have  gone  down  in  the 
Tecumseh. 

"  But  if  he  was  colonel  of  a  North  Caroli- 
na regiment,  how  came  he  on  board  of  a 


THE   NEW    MEMBER   OF   THE   CLUB       165 

United  States  iron-clad  ?"  asked  my  com- 
panion. 

"  Perhaps  he  had  been  taken  prisoner," 
I  suggested,  "and  perhaps — " 

"  Shucks  !"  interrupted  Harry  Brackett. 
"That's  altogether  too  thin.  Don't  you 
try  to  reconcile  the  little  man's  conflicting 
statements.  He  doesn't.  He  just  lets 
them  conflict." 

We  had  paused  in  the  main  hall  to  have 
the  talk  out.  When  at  length  we  walked 
on  into  the  grill-room,  we  found  Judge  Gil- 
lespie,  and  Rupert  de  Ruyter,  and  Cock- 
shaw  already  getting  supper  at  the  round 
table  in  the  bow  -  window.  De  Ruyter 
called  us  over,  and  he  and  the  judge  made 
room  for  us. 

As  soon  as  we  were  seated,  the  judge 
turned  to  Cockshaw  with  his  customary 
courtesy,  and  said,  "  I  fear  we  interrupted 
you,  Mr.  Cockshaw." 

"  Not  at  all,"  the  new  member  answered, 
with  an  inoffensive  smile.  "  But  as  we  were 
speaking  of  philopenas  I  was  only  going  to 
tell  of  an  experience  of  my  brother-in-law. 
Twenty  years  ago  or  so,  when  he  was  war- 


!66       THE    NEW   MEMBER    OF   THE   CLUB 

den  of  the  Church  of  St.  Boniface  in  Phila- 
delphia, he  met  a  very  bright  New  York 
girl  at  dinner  one  Saturday  night,  and  they 
ate  a  philopena  together — give  and  take, 
you  know.  The  next  morning,  when  he  left 
his  pew  to  pass  the  plate  after  the  sermon, 
he  felt  a  sudden  conviction  that  that  New 
York  girl  was  sitting  somewhere  behind  him 
on  his  aisle  to  say  *  Philopena '  as  she  put 
a  contribution  into  his  plate.  He  managed 
to  look  back,  and  sure  enough  he  spied  her 
in  an  aisle-seat  near  the  door.  So  he  had 
to  whisper  to  a  fellow-vestryman  and  get 
him  to  exchange  aisles." 

In  some  tortured  manner  the  talk  turned 
to  churches  and  to  convents.  And  this  led 
Judge  Gillespie  to  give  us  a  most  interest- 
ing account  of  his  visit  to  the  monastery  on 
Mount  Athos,  where  the  life  of  man  is  re- 
duced to  its  barrenest  elements.  When  we 
had  made  an  end  of  plying  him  with  ques- 
tions, which  he  answered  with  the  courtesy, 
the  clearness,  and  the  precision  which  mark- 
ed his  speech  as  well  in  private  life  as  on 
the  bench,  the  talk  again  rambled  on,  rip- 
pling into  anecdotes  of  monks  and  monas- 


THE   NEW   MEMBER   OF   THE   CLUB       167 

teries  in  all  parts  of  the  world.  Harry  Brack- 
ett  had  spent  a  night  with  the  monks  of 
St.  Bernard  in  the  hospice  at  the  top  of 
the  Simplon  Pass ;  Rupert  de  Ruyter  had 
made  a  visit  to  the  Trappist  monastery  in 
Kentucky ;  I  had  been  to  the  old  Spanish 
mission-stations  in  Southern  California  and 
New  Mexico ;  only  the  new  member  of  the 
club  had  no  personal  experience  to  proffer. 
He  listened  with  unfailing  interest  as  each 
of  us  in  turn  set  forth  his  views  and  his  ad- 
ventures, serious  or  comic.  Then  when  we 
had  all  exhausted  the  subject,  Cockshaw 
smiled  affably  and  almost  timidly. 

"  I  have  lived  so  quiet  a  life  myself,"  he 
ventured,  "  that  I  do  not  know  that  I  have 
ever  met  a  monk  face  to  face,  and  I  know  I 
have  never  been  inside  of  a  convent ;  but 
when  my  brother-in-law  was  a  boy,  he  was 
travelling  in  Brittany  with  his  father,  and 
one  night  they  were  taken  in  at  a  convent. 
My  brother-in-law  was  given  a  cell  to  sleep 
in,  and  over  his  head  there  was  a  tiny  cup 
containing  holy-water;  but  the  boy  had 
never  seen  such  a  thing  before,  and  he 
didn't  know  what  it  was  for,  so  he  emptied 


168       THE   NEW    MEMBER   OF   THE  CLUB 

out  the  water,  and  put  his  matches  in  the 
little  cup,  that  he  might  have  them  handy  in 
the  night." 

"  When  was  this  ?"  asked  Harry  Brackett, 
feeling  in  his  pocket  for  a  pencil. 

"  In  '67  or  '68,"  Cockshaw  answered. 

Harry  Brackett  pulled  down  his  left  cuff 
and  pencilled  a  hasty  line  on  it,  an  opera- 
tion which  the  new  member  of  the  club  failed 
to  notice. 

"Oddly  enough,"  he  continued,  "my 
brother-in-law  saw  a  good  deal  of  the  Bre- 
ton priests  who  sheltered  him  that  night, 
for  he  was  studying  medicine  in  Paris  when 
the  war  broke  out  in  1870,  and  he  joined 
the  American  ambulance,  which  happened 
more  than  once  to  succor  the  brave  Bretons 
who  had  come  up  to  the  defence  of  the  cap- 
ital. Indeed,  he  was  out  in  the  field,  attend- 
ing to  a  wounded  Breton,  at  Champigny, 
when  he  was  killed  by  a  spent  shell." 

Remembering  that  Cockshaw  had  told  us 
before  that  his  brother-in-law  was  drowned 
in  the  Tecumseh,  I  looked  up  in  surprise.  As 
it  chanced,  I  caught  the  eye  of  the  new  mem- 
ber of  the  club.  He  returned  my  gaze  in  a 


THE    NEW    MEMBER    OF    THE    CLUB        169 

straightforward  fashion,  and  yet  with  a  cer- 
tain suggestion  of  timidity.  I  confess  that 
I  was  puzzled.  I  looked  over  to  Harry 
Brackett,  but  he  was  gazing  up  at  the  ceil- 
ing, with  his  pencil  still  in  his  fingers. 

Then  we  both  turned  our  attention  to  the 
"  Gramercy  Stew  "  which  the  waiter  brought 
us,  and  which  was  the  specialty  of  the  club. 
Judge  Gillespie  and  De  Ruyter  had  almost 
finished  their  supper  when  we  arrived,  and 
they  now  made  ready  to  leave  us. 

"  I  wish  I  were  as  young  as  you,  boys," 
said  the  judge,  as  he  rose ;  "  but  I'm  not, 
and  I  can't  sit  up  as  late  as  I  used.  Be- 
sides, I  must  go  to  the  Brevoort  House 
early  to-morrow  morning,  for  I've  prom- 
ised to  take  Lord  Stanyhurst  to  Grace 
Church." 

"  Is  Lord  Stanyhurst  over  here  ?"  asked 
Cockshaw,  with  interest. 

"  He  arrived  this  afternoon  on  the  Silu- 
ria"  the  judge  answered.  "  Do  you  know 
him  ?" 

"  I  know  his  son,"  replied  the  new  mem- 
ber of  the  club.  After  a  momentary  pause 
he  added :  "  In  fact,  we  are  remotely  con- 


1 70       THE   NEW   MEMBER   OF   THE    CLUB 

nected  by  marriage.     He  is  my  brother-in- 
law's  brother-in-law." 

Judge  Gillespie  and  Rupert  de  Ruyter  did 
not  hear  this,  for  they  had  walked  away  to- 
gether. 

But  Harry  Brackett  heard  it,  and  he  sat 
upright  in  his  chair  and  cried  :  "  What  was 
that  you  said  ?  Would  you  mind  saying  it 
all  over  again,  and  saying  it  slow  ?" 

"Certainly  not,"  responded  Cockshaw, 
with  no  suggestion  of  aggressiveness — with 
all  his  wonted  placidity.  "I  said  that  Lord 
S tan y hurst's  son  was  my  brother-in-law's 
brother-in-law;  that  is  to  say,  he  married 
the  sister  of  the  man  my  sister  married. 

"  Do  you  know,"  Harry  Brackett  remark- 
ed, solemnly — "  do  you  know  that  you  have 
the  most  remarkable  brother-in-law  on  rec- 
ord ?  A  brother-in-law 

so  various,  that  he  seem'd  to  be 
Not  one,  but  all  mankind's  epitome." 

"  How  so  ?"  asked  the  new  member  of  the 
club,  with  a  stiffening  of  his  voice,  as  though 
he  were  beginning  to  resent  the  manner  of 
the  man  with  whom  he  was  talking. 


THE    NEW    MEMBER    OF    THE    CLUB       171 

I  sat  still  and  said  nothing.  It  was  not 
my  place  to  intervene.  Besides,  I  confess 
that  my  curiosity  made  me  quite  willing  to 
be  present  at  the  discussion,  even  though 
my  hope  of  any  possible  explanation  was  re- 
mote enough. 

"I  don't  want  to  say  anything  against 
any  man's  brother-in-law,"  Harry  Brackett 
went  on,  "  but  don't  you  think  that  the  con- 
duct of  yours  is  a  little  queer  ?" 

"In  what  way?"  asked  Cockshaw,  with 
greater  reserve. 

u  Well,  in  the  way  of  dying,  for  example," 
Harry  Brackett  responded.  "  Most  of  us 
can  die  only  once,  but  your  brother-in-law 
managed  to  die  twice.  First,  he  was  drowned 
in  the  Tecumseh,  and  then  he  was  killed  at 
Champigny." 

"  But  that  was  not — "  began  the  new  mem- 
ber of  the  club,  and  then  he  checked  him- 
self sharply  and  said,  "  Well  ?" 

"Well,"  repeated  Harry  Brackett,  with 
possibly  a  shade  less  of  confidence  in  his 
manner,  "  Well,  he  was  a  very  remarkable 
character,  that  brother-in-law  of  yours,  be- 
fore he  departed  this  life  twice,  just  as  though 


172       THE   NEW   MEMBER   OF    THE   CLUB 

he  had  been  twins.  In  fact  he  died  three 
times,  for  I'd  forgotten  his  demise  in  Vienna 
in  1873,  just  before  the  Exhibition  opened. 
His  habit  of  dying  on  the  instalment  plan 
didn't  prevent  him  from  putting  in  his  fine 
work  all  along  the  line.  I  don't  suppose 
that  you  married  the  sister  of  the  Wander- 
ing Jew  or  that  your  sister  married  the  Fly- 
ing Dutchman,  but  I  confess  I  can't  think  of 
any  other  explanation.  You  see  I've  been 
keeping  tab  on  my  cuff.  Your  brother-in- 
law's  name  is  Eli  Low,  and  he  is  now  a  part- 
ner in  Carpenter  &  Co.,  the  publishers.  But 
he  went  to  California  in  1849,  and  he  climbed 
the  Jungfrau  in  1853,  and  he  lost  a  leg  at 
Gettysburg  in  1863,  and  he  lost  his  life  by 
the  sinking  of  the  Tecumseh  in  1864,  which 
did  not  prevent  his  being  a  boy  in  Brittany 
a  few  years  later,  or  his  getting  killed  all 
over  again  at  Champigny  in  1870 — although 
I  should  think  the  Prussians  would  have 
been  ashamed  to  hit  a  drowned  man,  even 
with  a  spent  shell.  And  this  second  demise 
never  interfered  with  his  being  president  of 
a  lumber  company  in  Chicago  at  the  time 
of  the  fire,  1871,  or  with  his  going  in  the 


THE   NEW   MEMBER   OF   THE   CLUB       173 

same  year  to  Africa  with  Stanley  to  find 
Livingstone.  But  he  must  have  scurried 
home  pretty  promptly,  because  in  1872  he 
was  a  warden  of  St.  Boniface's  in  Philadel- 
phia ;  and  then  he  must  have  flitted  back 
across  the  Atlantic  in  double-quick  time,  be- 
cause in  1873  he  was  studying  with  Dr.  Spit- 
zer  in  Vienna,  where  he  died  a  third  time. 
So  even  if  he  were  a  cat  he  would  have  only 
six  lives  left  now.  In  1876  he  seems  to  have 
gone  to  Louisville  to  see  the  Fourth  of  July 
race  between  Tenbroeck  and  Molly  Macar- 
thy ;  and  now  to-day  in  1892  he  is  a  partner 
in  a  publishing  house  here  in  New  York." 

To  this  long  statement  of  Harry  Brack- 
ett's  Mr.  Harrington  Cockshaw  listened  in 
absolute  silence,  making  no  attempt  to  inter- 
rupt and  seeming  wholly  unabashed.  Once 
a  smile  hovered  around  the  corners  of  his 
mouth  for  a  moment  only,  vanishing  as 
quickly  as  it  came. 

Now  he  lifted  his  eyes,  and  looked  Harry 
Brackett  squarely  in  the  face. 

"  So  you  think  I  have  been  lying  ?"  he 
asked. 

"I  wouldn't  say  that,"  was  the  answer. 


174       THE   NEW   MEMBER   OF   THE   CLUE 

"  I'm  not  setting  up  codes  of  veracity  for 
other  people.  But  taking  things  by  and 
large,  I  can't  help  thinking  that  your  broth- 
er-in-law has  had  more  than  his  share  of  ex- 
perience. I  wonder  he  doesn't  go  on  the 
road  as  a  lecturer — or  else  I  wonder  that 
you  yourself  don't  write  a  novel." 

The  new  member  of  the  club  repeated  his 
question  :  "  You  think  I'm  a  liar  ?" 

Harry  Brackett  made  no  reply. 

Cockshaw  continued  in  a  perfectly  even 
voice  with  no  tremor  in  it.  "  You  think  that 
when  I  told  you  all  these  things  that  you 
have  amused  yourself  in  setting  down  on 
your  cuff  in  chronological  order,  I  was  tell- 
ing you  what  was  not  so  ?  Then  what  will 
you  say,  when  I  assure  you  that  every  state- 
ment of  mine  is  strictly  accurate  ?" 

"  If  you  assure  me,"  Harry  Brackett  an- 
swered, "  that  your  brother-in-law  died  once 
in  1864,  and  again  in  1870,  and  a  third  time 
in  1873,  all  I  can  say  is  that  he  wanted  to 
be  in  at  the  death,  that's  all.  He  was  fond- 
er of  dying  than  any  man  I  ever  heard  of." 

"  Mr.  Brackett,"  said  the  little  man,  "  when 
I  told  you  all  these  things,  one  at  a  time, 


THE   NEW   MEMBER   OF   THE   CLUB       175 

about  my  brother-in-law,  I  never  meant  to 
suggest,  and  I  never  supposed  you  would 
believe,  that  they  all  referred  to  one  and  the 
same  brother-in-law.  They  don't.  My  wife 
has  six  brothers,  and  I  have  five  sisters,  all 
married  now — so  I  have  still  eight  brothers- 
in-law  surviving." 

Harry  Brackett  rang  the  little  bell  on  the 
table,  and  when  the  waiter  came  he  said, 
"Take  Mr.  Cockshaw's  order." 

(1892.) 


ETELKA  TALMEYR 


ETELKA  TALMEYR: 

A    TALE    OF    THREE    CITIES 

I. — LONDON. 

THERE  had  been  a  full  week  of  fair  weather 
at  the  beginning  of  June,  and  Piccadilly  was 
swept  its  whole  length  by  the  afternoon 
tide  of  cabs  and  carts  and  carriages,  which 
swirled  about  the  stolid  statue  of  the  Iron 
Duke  and  eddied  away  to  Belgravia,  to  Ken- 
sington, and  to  Mayfair.  The  sandwich 
men  who  wearily  followed  each  other  in 
single  file  along  the  gutter,  bearing  on  their 
breasts  and  backs  boards  announcing  "  The 
Messiah"  at  the  Albert  Hall,  were  often 
splashed  by  the  brisk  hansoms  emblazoned 
with  the  arms  of  their  noble  owners.  It 
was  nearly  four  o'clock,  and  the  flood  was 
still  rising. 


180  ETELKA   TALMEYR  : 

Among  those  who  were  borne  along  by 
its  current  were  two  New  Yorkers. 

"  I  used  to  think,"  said  one  of  them,  Mr. 
Robert  White,  "that  the  chief  difference 
between  New  York  and  London  could  be 
summed  up  in  a  sentence  :  in  America  we 
have  clear  skies  and  dirty  streets,  while  in 
England  they  have  dirty  skies  and  clean 
streets.  But  such  a  week  as  we  have  had 
now  spoils  my  epigram,  and  gives  the  British 
both  clean  streets  and  clear  skies." 

"  In  dry  weather  all  signs  fail,"  gravely 
quoted  his  companion,  Dr.  Cheever. 

"  Then  I  had  always  been  told  that  the 
English  climate  had  none  of  the  staggering 
uncertainty  Old  Probabilities  gives  to  Amer- 
ican climate,  and  that  the  British  Clerk  of 
the  Weather  could  be  counted  on  absolute- 
ly, so  that  you  might  be  sure  as  to  what 
was  going  to  happen — if  it  rained,  you 
might  declare  it  was  going  to  clear  up  in  an 
hour  or  so,  and  when  it  was  fair,  you  knew 
that  it  would  pour  sooner  or  later.  But  after 
the  past  ten  days,  I  begin  to  believe  that 
the  British  abuse  their  own  climate  just  as 
they  do  our  spelling." 


A   TALE   OF  THREE   CITIES  181 

"  If  you  will  examine  the  attire  of  some 
of  the  young  ladies  who  are  passing  us," 
said  Dr.  Cheever,  "  I  think  you  will  see  that 
the  natives  have  not  maligned  their  weather. 
They  have  been  taught  by  experience  to  go 
prepared  for  any  fate." 

White  laughed  gently.  "  I  have  noticed," 
he  rejoined,  "  that  the  regular  June  costume 
of  a  London  girl  is  a  white  muslin  dress 
with  a  pink  sash  and  a  fur  cape,  and  then, 
when  she  puts  on  her  galoches  and  takes 
her  umbrella,  rain  or  shine  makes  no  differ- 
ence to  her." 

The  doctor  smiled,  but  did  not  respond 
further. 

"  I  suppose  we  shall  see  lots  of  girls  at 
this  concert,"  White  went  on.  "  Is  it  going 
to  be  a  very  swagger  function,  as  they  say 
over  here  ?" 

"Probably,"  Dr.  Cheever  answered. 
"  Lady  Stanyhurst  is  very  popular  with 
young  people,  I'm  told.  But  this  is  really 
a  children's  concert  we  are  going  to  now. 
Her  son  is  a  violinist ;  he's  only  fifteen, 
but  he  takes  lessons  of  Sarasate.  And  I 
heard  the  Dowager  Duchess  of  Dover  say 


1 82  ETELKA   TALMEYR  : 

that  *  really,  you  know,  his  playing  isn't 
half-bad,'  and  that  is  their  highest  formula 
of  praise." 

By  this  time  the  two  friends  had  arrived 
before  a  spacious  house  facing  the  pleasant 
freshness  of  the  Green  Park.  From  the 
door  of  this  mansion-  a  carpet  had  been 
rolled  across  the  sidewalk ;  and  every  min- 
ute or  two  carriages  drew  up,  and  their  oc- 
cupants —  mostly  ladies,  and  many  of  them 
elderly  and  elaborately  upholstered — passed 
along  the  carpet  into  the  house. 

"  Here  we  are,"  said  Dr.  Cheever. 

"  She  has  a  sizable  house,  this  Lady 
Stanyhurst  of  yours,"  White  responded,  as 
they  made  ready  to  enter. 

They  were  late,  since  the  concert  had 
been  announced  for  three  o'clock ;  and  as 
they  passed  up  the  crowded  stairs  they 
heard  the  metallic  notes  of  two  pianos, 
vigorously  pounded  by  a  pair  of  tall,  thin 
girls,  twin  daughters  of  Sir  Kensington 
Gower,  K.C.B. 

The  duet  ceased  as  the  two  Americans 
managed  to  reach  the  hostess,  standing  just 
within  the  doorway  of  the  drawing-room. 


A   TALE   OF   THREE   CITIES  183 

"  So  glad  you  were  able  to  come,"  said 
Lady  Stanyhurst  to  Dr.  Cheever.  She  was 
a  pleasant-faced  plump  little  body.  "And 
this  is  your  friend  ?  So  sorry  you  did  not 
hear  that  charming  duet !  Those  girls  of 
Sir  Kensington's  are  astonishing  —  really 
astonishing." 

White  was  about  to  murmur  inarticulate 
regrets  for  his  tardiness  when  the  hostess 
turned  from  him  to  greet  a  later  arrival. 
He  heard  Lady  Stanyhurst  say,  "  So  glad 
you  were  able  to  come,"  to  a  portly  clergy- 
man ;  and  then  the  pressure  of  the  crowd 
carried  him  and  Dr.  Cheever  towards  the 
end  of  the  room,  and  they  found  freedom 
only  when  they  were  in  the  embrasure  of 
an  open  window,  whence  they  could  look 
across  the  park  and  see  the  clock-tower  of 
Westminster  through  the  summer  haze. 
From  this  coign  of  vantage  they  could 
survey  —  if  they  turned  their  backs  on  the 
view  out -doors  —  the  large  rectangular 
drawing-room,  with  the  other  rooms  opening 
beyond. 

They  had  scarcely  taken  up  their  posi- 
tion when  a  violin-stand  was  placed  in  the 


1 84  ETELKA   TALMEYR  : 

centre  of  a  little  open  space  near  the  two 
pianos  in  the  adjoining  room,  and  a  smug- 
faced  boy  of  fifteen  came  forward  with  a 
violin  in  his  hand.  He  wore  an  Eton 
jacket,  and  he  seemed  very  uncomfortable 
and  awkward.  There  was  a  lull  in  the 
chatter  which  filled  the  house,  for  this  was 
the  son  of  the  hostess  ;  and  the  lad  began 
the  "  Sarabande  "  of  Corelli.  He  did  not 
play  badly  for  a  boy,  but  the  musicians 
present  must  have  wondered  at  the  mater- 
nal pride  which  could  force  the  lad  to  such 
a  discovery  of  his  inexperience. 

When  the  perfunctory  applause  had  died 
away,  after  the  encore  which  the  poor  boy 
had  prepared  for,  White  said  to  Dr.  Cheever, 
"  And  who  is  here  ?" 

"  All  sorts  of  people,"  responded  his 
friend.  "  There's  the  Prime-minister  in 
that  corner  talking  to  the  Dowager  Duch- 
ess of  Dover.  There's  the  editor  of  the 
Epoch,  with  his  wife  and  five  daughters,  just 
coming  in.  There  is  Dr.  Pennington,  the 
rector  of  St.  Boniface's,  of  Philadelphia  — 

"  Are  there  Americans  here  besides  us  ?" 
asked  White. 


A   TALE   OF  THREE    CITIES  185 

"  Lots  of  them,"  the  doctor  replied ;  "  and 
all  sorts  too.  The  rector  of  St.  Boniface's 
there  is  alongside  Dexter,  the  Chicago  wheat 
operator." 

"  How  did  he  get  here  ?"  White  wanted 
to  know. 

"  Oh,  there  are  worse  here  than  Cable  J. 
Dexter,"  Cheever  returned.  "When  an  Amer- 
ican adventurer  conies  to  London  with  lots 
of  money,  it's  always  a  question  whether  he 
will  be  taken  up  by  the  police  or  by  Society." 

While  the  two  Americans  were  thus  gen- 
eralizing hastily  about  London  society,  the 
violin-stand  had  been  removed  by  a  foot- 
man in  white  livery,  who  now  returned  and 
raised  the  top  of  one  of  the  grand-pianos. 
Among  the  little  group  of  intimates  of  the 
house  who  were  gathered  close  to  the  in- 
strument there  was  to  be  noticed  a  move- 
ment as  of  expectancy.  In  a  minute  a 
young  girl  came  forward  and  took  her  seat 
at  the  piano. 

For  a  moment  she  sat  silent  and  motion- 
less, and  then,  without  any  suggestion  of 
hesitancy  or  timidity,  she  raised  her  hands 
and  began  to  play. 


1 86  ETELKA   TALMEYR  : 

As  the  first  bars  of  Chopin's  B.  Minor 
Scherzo  fell  upon  his  ears,  Dr.  Cheever 
checked  his  friend's  gossip  with  a  gesture, 
and  said,  "  Why,  they've  got  a  musician !" 

He  and  White  turned  to  see  the  player. 
They  saw  a  slip  of  a  girl  of  perhaps  fifteen 
or  sixteen,  her  thin  face  crowned  by  a  thick 
mass  of  black  hair,  and  lighted  by  a  pair  of 
flaming  eyes.  As  she  played  on,  a  spot  of 
color  began  to  glow  on  her  tawny  cheeks. 

"  That  bag  of  bones  has  the  sacred  fire, 
hasn't  she  ?"  cried  White.  "  See  how  her 
long  face  is  almost  transfigured  by  the 
music." 

"  I  wonder  who  she  is,"  Dr.  Cheever 
said. 

"  She's  not  English,  for  one  thing,"  re- 
turned White.  "  Neither  that  swarthy  skin 
of  hers  nor  that  musical  temperament  is 
native  to  the  British  Isles." 

"  Not  English,  of  a  certainty,"  the  doctor 
declared  ;  "  gypsy,  possibly,  or  Jewish  — 
they  are  both  musical  peoples.  But  she 
may  be  a  Slav  or  a  Czech ;  you  can't  tell. 
The  face  is  expressive,  but  it  keeps  its  se- 
crets, for  all  that." 


A   TALE   OF   THREE    CITIES  187 

"  It's  the  face  of  a  born  musician — that's 
obvious  enough,"  said  White,  as  the  power 
of  the  performance  seized  them  both.  "  I 
wish  she  hadn't  that  trick  of  twitching  her 
eyebrows." 

"  She  has  very  obvious  gifts,"  the  doctor 
added,  "  and  she  has  trained  herself  rigor- 
ously. There  is  will  in  that  jaw  of  hers,  the 
determination  to  succeed." 

"  What  will  she  be  in  the  future  ?"  White 
queried.  "  A  great  artist  ?  A  great  lady  ? 
A  great  beauty  even  ?  Or  will  she  degen- 
erate, and  not  develop  at  all  ?" 

"  She  may  be  a  beauty  if  she  chooses," 
his  friend  answered.  "  She  has  the  raw 
material  of  beauty  in  those  strange  features 
of  hers.  And  she  is  clever  enough  to  be  a 
beauty  if  she  thinks  it  worth  while.  It's 
the  exceeding  cleverness  in  the  face  that  im- 
presses one  most.  Yes,  she  is  devilishly 
clever  that  girl ;  quite  clever  enough  to  be 
a  great  artist,  a  great  lady,  a  great  beauty 
—  all  three  —  if  the  chance  come.  And 
in  the  mean  while  she  is  interesting  to  listen 
to  and  interesting  to  look  at." 

"  I  wonder,"  said  White,  gazing   at  the 


1 88  ETELKA   TALMEYR  : 

girl  intently,  "  where  she  came  from  almost 
as  much  as  I  wonder  where  she  will  go. 
What  is  the  heredity  that  breeds  faces  and 
figures  like  hers  ?  And  what  environment 
will  best  develop  an  ardent  soul  like  that  ? 
Will  the  future  take  her  up  or  carry  her 
down  ?" 

"  Who  can  tell  now  ?"  the  doctor  re- 
sponded. "Look  at  her  mouth — that  is 
sensual ;  and  there  is  cunning  in  those  thin 
lips.  With  that  mouth  I  should  say  a  girl 
might  go  to  the  devil — or  might  hold  a 
candle  to  him,  if  she  thought  the  game 
worth  it." 

"  That  is  to  say,"  White  returned,  "  with 
a  face  such  as  hers  anything  is  possible  in 
the  future.  In  the  mean  time,  I'd  like  to 
know  to  whom  the  face  belongs  now.  It 
will  have  to  be  an  outlandish  name  to  fit 
that  exotic  personality." 

When  the  music  ceased  and  the  girl  rose 
from  the  piano,  Dr.  Cheever  saw  standing 
near  to  him  a  spare  and  angular  old  lady 
with  a  queer  little  cap  askew  on  her  head 
under  a  queer  little  bonnet. 

"  Here    is    the    Dowager    Duchess    of 


A   TALE   OF   THREE   CITIES  189 

Dover,"  he  whispered  to  White.  "  I'll  ask 
her.  She  knows  everything  and  every- 
body, and  everything  about  everybody." 

Stepping  forward,  he  said,  "  Good-after- 
noon, Duchess." 

The  elderly  lady  looked  up  and  recog- 
nized the  American,  and  acknowledged  his 
presence  by  protruding  two  bony  fingers  of 
her  right  hand,  saying,  "It's  Dr.  Cheever, 
isn't  it?" 

"  At  your  service,"  he  replied,  "  and  he 
wants  to  ask  a  favor  of  you — or  at  least 
some  information.  Who  is  that  girl  who 
has  been  playing  ?" 

"  Plays  very  well,  doesn't  she  ?"  returned 
the  Duchess.  "  You  could  tell  at  once 
that  she  wasn't  a  lady  by  her  touch — quite 
professional.  And  they  say  she  has  a  voice 
too— something  quite  wonderful." 

"  Who  is  she  ?"  the  doctor  repeated. 

"  She's  a  foreigner,  of  couse — a  Pole  or 
a  Hungarian,  or  something  of  that  kind, 
you  know,"  the  Duchess  answered.  "  Her 
name's  Etelka  Talmeyr — odd  name,  isn't 
it  ?  But  then  foreigners  are  so  peculiar. 
She's  the  daughter  of  a  music-teacher  at 


IQO  ETELKA   TALMEYR  : 

Madame  Mohr's,  a  doubtful  sort  of  char- 
acter, who  ran  away  and  abandoned  the 
child.  I  believe  that  she's  dead  now,  and 
Madame  Mohr  has  kept  the  girl  out  of 
charity.  So  kind  of  her,  wasn't  it?  But 
then  she  is  charity  itself.  Of  course  Tal- 
meyr  teaches  the  little  girls  and  makes  her- 
self useful  about  the  school.  She  could  do 
no  less,  could  she  ?" 

Having  thus  satisfied  Dr.  Cheever's  cu- 
riosity, the  Dowager  Duchess  of  Dover 
dropped  him  an  acidulated  smile  and 
passed  on. 

"  Kindly  old  aristocrat,  that  Duchess  of 
yours,"  said  White,  as  Dr.  Cheever  returned 
to  his  side.  "  Every  woman  her  own  freez- 
er. Duchess  of  Wenham  Lake,  I'd  call 
her." 

"  I  wouldn't  call  her  if  I  were  you,"  the 
doctor  rejoined,  "for  she  wouldn't  come. 
And  you  need  not  abuse  her,  either,  for  she 
told  us  what  we  want  to  know  about  the 
thin  girl  with  the  fiery  eyes." 

"  Etelka  Talmeyr  is  just  the  name  for 
her,  isn't  it?"  asked  White.  "Etelka  is 
Hungarian,  isn't  it  ?" 


A   TALE   OF  THREE   CITIES  191 

"And  Talmeyr  is  German,  I  suppose," 
said  Dr.  Cheever. 

"Well,"  White  added,  after  a  moment's 
pause,  "  we  know  who  she  is  and  what  her 
name  is.  But  we  don't  know  what  she  will 
be  in  five  years." 

"  What  she  .will  be  in  five  years,"  the 
doctor  responded,  "  nobody  knows,  least  of 
all  the  girl  herself.  And  yet  a  face  like 
that  has  force  behind  it,  and  I  should  not 
wonder  if  the  woman  of  five  years  from 
now  made  some  of  the  dreams  of  the  girl 
of  to-day  come  true." 

By  this  time  a  duet  had  begun  between  a 
plump  girl  of  thirteen  playing  the  'cello  and 
her  brother,  a  lad  of  fourteen,  seated  at  the 
piano.  The  rooms  were  getting  more  and 
more  crowded  as  betarded  guests  continued 
to  arrive. 

Dr.  Cheever  found  an  acquaintance  who 
had  in  his  hand  one  of  the  satin  pro- 
grammes which  set  forth  the  order  of  ex- 
ercises, and  borrowing  this  for  a  second,  he 
saw  that  Miss  Etelka  Talmeyr  was  not  to 
perform  again.  He  told  his  friend. 

"  Shall  we  go,  then  ?"   asked  White.     "  I 


I92  ETELKA    TALMEYR  : 

believe  that  a  little  turn  in  Bond  Street  be- 
fore dinner  might  drive  my  wife's  headache 
away." 

So  the  two  New  Yorkers  shook  hands 
with  the  hostess,  and  passed  down  the 
thronged  stairs  and  out  into  the  sunshine 
of  Piccadilly. 


II. — NEW   YORK. 

One  evening  in  February,  more  than  six 
years  later,  Mr.  Robert  White  sat  in  a  corner 
of  the  huge  dining-room  of  the  College  Club 
in  New  York,  eating  a  lonely  dinner.  His 
wife  had  gone  down  to  Florida  with  her 
father  to  avoid  the  thawing  and  the  freezing 
which  are  commonly  characteristic  of  a  New 
York  February  ;  she  had  been  away  two 
weeks,  and  White  was  beginning  to  feel 
abandoned.  It  was  Washington's  Birthday, 
and  a  holiday  often  operates  to  make  a 
solitary  man  desperately  lonely.  The  deso- 
lation of  the  occasion  was  further  intensified 
by  the  weather.  For  two  days  there  had 
been  a  steady  drizzle  of  fine  rain,  enough  to 


MR.   ROBERT    WHITE    SAT    IN    A    CORNER,  EATING    A 

LONELY  DINNER" 


A    TALE    OF    THREE   CITIES  193 

moisten  and  embrown  the  heaps  of  snow  in 
the  streets,  but  not  vigorous  enough  to  wash 
these  away.  Now  a  damp  mist  was  rising 
from  the  sidewalks,  and  a  flicker  of  rain 
trickled  through  it  at  intervals.  The  damp- 
ness made  it  unwise  to  open  the  windows  of 
the  dining-room,  and  the  atmosphere  was 
close  and  discomforting. 

Holiday  as  it  was,  White  had  gone  duly 
to  the  office  of  the  Gotham  Gazette,  and  he 
had  written  his  usual  editorial  article,  put- 
ting into  it  perhaps  an  undue  causticity,  due 
only  to  his  dissatisfied  loneliness  ;  it  was  an 
essay  on  the  gratitude  of  our  republic,  as 
proved  by  its  keeping  the  birthday  of  its 
founder,  now  nearly  a  hundred  years  after 
his  death.  An  essay  on  this  theme  does 
not  lend  itself  necessarily  to  sarcasm  and 
irony. 

His  day's  work  done,  on  a  day  when  other 
men  were  doing  nothing,  White  had  come  to 
the  College  Club  in  the  hope  of  a  stimulat- 
ing game  of  piquet  and  a  dinner  with  some 
congenial  friend.  But  the  club  had  been 
almost  deserted,  and  among  the  few  men 
there  he  had  seen  none  of  his  intimates. 
13 


I94 


ETELKA   TALMEYR  : 


He  was  too  kindly  to  abuse  the  waiter  for 
the  fault  he  found  with  the  dinner,  but  he 
called  for  the  complaint  book  and  wrote  a 
sharp  protest  against  the  acridity  of  his 
coffee.  Having  thus  relieved  his  feelings 
somewhat,  he  walked  down  to  the  billiard- 
room. 

As  he  entered  the  room  he  was  met  by  a 
cry  of  welcome. 

"  Hello,  White  !  I  say,  boys,  let's  make 
White  go  with  us  too  !  *  When  the  wife  is 
away,  the  husband  can  play;'  there's  a 
motto  for  you." 

The  speaker  was  a  clean-shaven,  clean- 
looking  young  fellow,  Kissam  Ketteltas  by 
name ;  and  he  was  just  back  from  three 
years  of  hard  labor  at  a  German  university. 
As  he  spoke  he  was  coming  towards  the 
door  with  half  a  dozen  other  young  fellows. 

"  Mr.  \Vhite  has  the  best  of  it,"  said  one 
of  them ;  "  this  is  the  kind  of  day  when  I 
wish  I  was  married.  If  I  had  a  wife  now,  I 
could  pass  the  time  quarrelling  with  her." 

"To  be  bored  is  the  proper  punishment 
of  idleness,"  returned  Ketteltas  ;  "  and  you 
haven't  done  any  work  since  you  graduated. 


A   TALE   OF   THREE   CITIES  195 

Besides,  matrimony  is  a  poor  remedy  for 
monotony.  *  Anything  for  a  quiet  wife ;' 
that's  another  motto  for  y£>u  !" 

"  White  is  a  grass-widower  now,  anyway," 
said  one  of  the  group,  an  undersized  little 
man  with  a  thin  wisp  of  sandy  mustache, 
"  and  he  had  best  make  hay  while  the  sun 
shines.  So  he  hasn't  any  excuse  for  not 
coming  with  us." 

This  last  speaker  was  little  Mat  Hitch- 
cock, whom  White  disliked.  He  lighted  his 
cigar  before  responding. 

"  If  you  will  kindly  intermit  this  corusca- 
tion of  epigram,"  he  said,  "and  tell  me 
where  it  is  you  want  me  to  go  with  you,  I 
shall  be  in  a  condition  to  give  you  an  earlier 
answer." 

"We  are  going  to  the  Alcazar,"  Ketteltas 
replied. 

"The  Alcazar?"  White  repeated,  doubt- 
fully. 

"  If  you  had  read  your  own  paper  last 
Tuesday,"  returned  the  other,  "you  would 
have  seen  that  the  Alcazar  is  a  new  music- 
hall — something  like  the  London  Alhambra, 
you  know;  and  the  Great  Albertus  is  to 


196  ETELKA    TALMEYR  : 

make  his  first  appearance  to-night — in  honor 
of  Washington's  Birthday,  I  suppose,  and 
to  commemorate  the  ancient  alliance  of 
France  and  America." 

"  Are  you  all  going  ?"  asked  White,  look- 
ing over  the  group,  and  remarking  in  it  none 
of  his  own  intimates,  and  even  one  man  he 
disliked. 

"We've  got  a  big  box,  and  we  are  all 
going,"  Ketteltas  responded  ;  and  we  want 
you  to  come  with  us  to  matronize  us.  We 
will  blow  you  off.  So  'don't  look  a  gift 
cigar  in  the  mouth ;'  there's  another  motto 
for  you." 

"I  don't  know  about  going,"  White  began, 
hesitatingly. 

"  I  do,"  the  other  interrupted.  "  And  I 
know  you  are  going.  We  need  you  to  ex- 
pound the  ulterior  significance  of  some  of 
the  more  abstruse  of  the  Frenchman's  songs. 
Besides,  little  Mat  Hitchcock  here  is  so 
near-sighted  that  he  can't  see  a  joke  unless 
he  has  his  eye-glasses  on,  and  he  has  broken 
them,  and  we  shall  rely  on  you  to  explain  all 
the  doubtful  allusions  to  him." 

So  saying,  Kissam  Ketteltas  seized  Robert 


A   TALE   OF    THREE    CITIES  197 

White's  arm  and  led  him  away,  only  half  re- 
sisting. 

"  I  suppose  this  thing  we  are  to  see  is  what 
is  called  a  variety  show  ?"  White  asked,  as 
the  party  plunged  into  the  muggy  murkiness 
of  the  night. 

"  It  is  called  a  variety  show,  I  admit," 
Ketteltas  answered,  "just  as  a  lawyer's 
document  is  called  a  brief — and  with  about 
as  much  reason.  But  then,  if  it  is  always 
the  same,  it  is  always  amusing,  for  it  makes 
absolutely  no  demand  on  the  intelligence." 

A  sudden  flurry  of  rain  forced  them  all  to 
button  their  collars  tightly  and  made  con- 
versation difficult.  A  dank  steam  rose  from 
the  roadway,  and  the  electric  lights  gleamed 
dully  through  the  mist  and  the  drizzle. 

"  This  is  a  soggy  night,  if  you  like  one," 
said  Ketteltas,  as  they  came  to  the  vulgarly 
decorated  entrance  of  the  Alcazar. 

"  But  I  don't  like  one,"  White  responded, 
following  his  guide  down  a  long  dark  cor- 
ridor. "  And  I  don't  like  to  think  myself  a 
fool,  either — although  I  feel  like  one  for 
coming  to  this  hole." 

"  Here's  our  box,"  the  other  said,  as  the 


198  ETELKA   TALMEYR  : 

attendant  opened  a  door.  "  You  won't  re- 
gret coming;  this  place  has  a  color  of  its 
own  quite  worth  while  seeing.  I've  been 
to  variety  shows  in  all  parts  of  the  world, 
and  they  are  all  alike — and  all  unlike  too. 
They  are  great  places  for  studying  human 
nature.  There's  a  lot  of  character  about  a 
music-hall — although  some  of  the  frequenters 
have  lost  theirs." 

The  box  they  emerged  into  was  one  of  a 
series  into  which  the  narrow  galleries  run- 
ning along  the  walls  were  divided  by  low 
board  partitions.  It  was  the  one  nearest  to 
the  stage,  and  it  was  perhaps  the  largest,  for 
it  contained  eight  chairs,  in  two  rows,  with 
a  long  table  between  them.  The  hall  was 
also  long  and  narrow.  The  floor  was  cov- 
ered with  more  little  tables,  surrounded  by 
chairs.  There  was  a  small  stage  at  the  end, 
with  a  violently  painted  set  of  scenery,  sup- 
posed to  represent  an  Oriental  garden.  The 
decoration  of  the  hall  was  equally  mean  and 
vulgar.  The  strongest  impression  the  place 
produced  was  one  of  tawdry  squalor.  Men 
with  their  hats  on  sat  at  the  little  tables, 
drinking  and  smoking,  countrymen  and  boys 


A    TALE   OF   THREE    CITIES  199 

mostly.  Women  with  obviously  artificial 
complexions  were  drinking  with  the  men,  or 
moving  restlessly  up  and  down  the  side  aisles. 
The  atmosphere  was  heavy  with  stale  smoke. 
Robert  White  wondered  why  he  had  come. 

When  White,  Ketteltas,  Hitchcock,  and 
the  others  entered,  half  a  dozen  musicians 
were  blaring  forth  the  refrain  of  a  comic 
song,  and  the  scant  stage  was  filled  by  the 
exuberant  presence  of  Miss  Queenie  Dough- 
erty, the  Irish  Empress  —  such  the  pro- 
gramme declared  her  to  be.  It  was  nearly 
nine  o'clock,  and  the  performance  had  be- 
gun an  hour  before.  Miss  Queenie  Dough- 
erty was  even  then  singing  for  the  fourth  time, 
in  response  to  three  successive  recalls.  The 
song  she  was  then  engaged  on  White  recog- 
nized from  having  heard  it  whistled  in  the 
streets.  It  described  the  prowess  of  a  Hi- 
bernian gentleman  of  pugnacious  proclivi- 
ties, who  was  besought  in  the  chorus  to 
demolish  his  antagonist : 

"Hit  him  one  or  two  ! 
Hould  him  till  you  do  ! 
Bate  him  black  an'  blue  ! 

For  the  honor  of  ould  Ireland!" 


200  ETELKA    TALMEYR  : 

When  the  Irish  Empress  had  sung  this 
song  to  the  bitter  end,  and  had  at  last  been 
allowed  to  withdraw,  a  screen,  painted  crude- 
ly to  imitate  a  glaring  Japanese  fan,  closed 
in  and  hid  the  stage. 

"What's  next?"  asked  little  Mat  Hitch- 
cock 

"  I've  a  programme,"  Ketteltas  answered. 
"  Next  we  are  to  behold  The  Staggs,  the 
Royal  Star  Acrobats.  That  will  give  me 
time  for  my  celebrated  imitation  of  a  man 
taking  a  drink.  What  will  you  have,  boys  ?" 

Before  the  attendant  had  taken  their  or- 
ders the  screen  on  the  stage  was  withdrawn, 
and  The  Staggs  came  forward  in  single  file. 
There  were  five  of  them,  the  foremost  a 
thick-set,  middle-aged  man,  and  the  last  a 
slight  lad.  They  were  all  in  evening  dress, 
with  black  knee-breeches  and  black  silk 
stockings  and  white  ties  and  crush  hats. 
They  bowed  to  the  audience,  removed  their 
hats,  and  built  themselves  suddenly  in^~>  a 
human  pyramid,  with  the  oldest  man  as  the 
base.  Then  they  removed  their  dress-coats, 
and  in  their  shirt  sleeves  they  proceeded  to 
perform  the  customary  feats  of  ground  and 


A   TALE    OF    THREE    CITIES  2OI 

lofty  tumbling,  with  a  certainty  and  a  neat- 
ness which  delighted  White's  heart.  At 
length  they  withdrew,  and  the  screen  again 
shut  off  the  stage. 

"  What's  next  ?"  asked  little  Mat  Hitch- 
cock again,  with  the  impatience  which 
was  one  of  his  most  irritating  character- 
istics. 

Ketteltas  referred  to  his  programme. 
"  La  Bella  FZtelka  and  Signer  Navarino  in 
their  great  musical  and  terpsichorean  fan- 
tasy," he  read.  "  I  remember  La  Bella 
Etelka,"  he  said.  "  I  saw  her  in  Budapest 
two  years  ago  —  but  she  hadn't  any  Signer 
Navarino  with  her  then.  She  was  a  good 
looker,  rather,  but  when  she  danced  she 
tousled  herself  all  up  till  she  was  as  fearful 
as  a  Comanche  banshee." 

When  the  screen  parted  again,  it  was 
seen  that  a  piano  had  been  placed  on  the 
stage.  Then  an  ignoble  little  man,  in  a 
caricature  ,of  a  dress  suit,  led  on  a  tall,  dark 
woman  of  striking  appearance.  He  escorted 
her  to  the  piano,  at  which  she  took  her  seat ; 
he  prepared  her  music  for  her  with  exagger- 
ated courtesy,  and  when  she  began  to  play, 


202  ETELKA   TALMEYR  : 

he  danced  a  few  eccentric  steps  behind  her 
back. 

As  La  Bella  Etelka  took  her  seat  at  the 
piano  she  faced  Robert  White,  and  was 
scarcely  fifteen  feet  from  him.  He  looked 
at  her  without  interest,  and  then  suddenly 
he  began  to  ask  himself  where  he  had  seen 
that  face  before.  By  the  time  she  had  played 
a  dozen  bars  of  Chopin's  Waltz  in  A  Minor 
he  had  recognrzed  her  by  the  peculiar 
twitch  of  the  eyebrows.  The  movement  of 
the  wrist  was  the  same  also,  the  carriage  of 
the  head,  the  eyes,  even  the  face  —  every- 
thing but  the  expression.  He  did  not  hesi- 
tate more  than  a  minute,  and  after  that  he 
had  no  longer  a  doubt  that  he  had  seen  La 
Bella  Etelka  once  before — six  years  before, 
in  London,  at  Lady  Stanyhurst's  children's 
concert,  one  afternoon  in  June.  La  Bella 
Etelka  was  Etelka  Talmeyr ;  of  that  there 
could  be  no  question,  although  she  had 
altered  strangely  for  the  worse.  The  for- 
eign look,  Slav  or  Czech,  Jewish  or  gypsy, 
was  unmistakable  still ;  and  there  was  no 
difficulty  in  recognizing  the  high  cheek- 
bones, the  fiery  eyes,  the  thick  black  hair. 


A   TALE   OF  THREE   CITIES  203 

But  what  a  pitiful  metamorphosis  it  was 
that  the  bright,  youthful  girl  of  six  years 
ago  should  be  changed  already  into  this 
full-blown,  vulgar-looking  woman.  The  ex- 
pression had  been  energetic  and  self-reliant ; 
it  was  now  crafty,  common  ;  and  the  hint 
of  sensuality  in  the  girl's  face  was  obvious 
animality  in  the  woman's.  All  the  features 
had  hardened  ;  all  the  promise  had  gone 
out  of  them,  all  the  gentleness,  and  all  the 
hope. 

While  Robert  White  was  thus  moralizing, 
La  Bella  Etelka  and  Signer  Navarino  were 
earning  their  salary.  She  had  played  the 
dreamy  and  poetic  measures  of  Chopin 
with  a  mastery  of  the  instrument  and  an 
appreciation  of  the  music  almost  out  of 
place  in  that  tobacco-smoked  hall.  Then, 
without  warning,  she  changed  the  time  to 
that  of  the  ordinary  waltz,  instantly  vulgar- 
izing the  music  and  accentuating  the  rhythm 
as  her  associate  danced  more  and  more  gro- 
tesquely. After  a  while  he  skipped  over  to 
her,  and  still  keeping  time  with  his  feet,  he 
began  playing  also.  Almost  as  soon  as  he 
took  his  position  at  the  piano  she  left  the 


204  ETELKA    TALMEYR  : 

instrument,  dancing  away  with  easy  grace, 
and  managing  her  long  black  train  with 
consummate  skill.  She  waltzed  about  the 
small  stage  decorously  enough  at  first,  and 
then,  without  warning,  still  keeping  perfect 
time,  she  flashed  out  her  foot  and  kicked 
her  partner's  hat  off  his  head.  Playing  with 
one  hand  only,  he  turned  sideways  and  pro- 
tested in  vigorous  pantomime.  She  danced 
away  from  him,  sweeping  her  long  skirts ; 
and  then  she  danced  back,  kicking  high 
over  his  head  as  he  sat  at  the  piano.  The 
band  then  took  up  the  tune  softly,  and 
Signer  Navarino  left  the  piano  and  skipped 
towards  La  Bella  Etelka,  who  tripped  lightly 
up  the  stage  and  took  his  hand,  whereupon 
they  came  down  to  the  footlights  together, 
each  in  turn  swinging  a  foot  over  the  other's 
head,  to  the  roaring  applause  of  the  specta- 
tors. 

It  was  with  growing  repugnance  that 
Robert  White  watched  this  vulgar  exhibi- 
tion, but  he  could  not  take  his  eyes  from 
the  woman's  face.  As  he  looked  at  the 
low  couple  pirouetting  about  the  tawdry 
stage,  he  recalled  every  word  of  his  conver- 


"THEY  CAME  DOWN  TO  THE  FOOTLIGHTS  TOGETHER 


A   TALE   OF  THREE   CITIES  205 

sation  with  Dr.  Cheever  at  Lady  Stany- 
hurst's  that  afternoon  in  June,  six  years  be- 
fore. He  remembered  their  speculation  as 
to  the  future  of  Etelka  Talmeyr  —  whether 
she  would  degenerate  or  develop.  She  had 
degenerated  —  there  was  no  doubt  of  that. 
Despite  the  diabolical  cleverness  Dr.  Chee- 
ver saw  in  her  face,  and  the  abundant 
strength  of  will  he  declared  her  to  have,  the 
girl  had  not  become  a  great  artist,  a  great 
beauty,  a  great  lady.  She  had  become  what 
White  saw  before  him — a  sorry  spectacle. 
If  six  years  had  wrought  all  this  change, 
what  adventures,  what  experiences,  what 
harsh  disappointments,  and  what  bitter 
griefs  must  have  been  crowded  into  them 
to  have  made  possible  this  obvious  moral 
disintegration.  The  woman  looked  twice 
six  years  older  than  the  girl  he  had  seen  six 
years  before — but  then  the  face  was  rouged 
and  plastered  and  blackened  out  of  likeness 
to  itself.  Besides,  as  the  French  say,  years 
of  campaign  count  double ;  and  he  almost 
shuddered  to  think  what  hideous  campaigns 
hers  must  have  been  to  account  for  so  sad- 
dening a  transformation. 


206  ETELKA    TALMEYR  : 

Another  roar  of  applause  awakened  White 
to  the  fact  that  La  Bella  Etelka  and  Signor 
Navarino  had  made  their  final  bow,  and 
were  retiring  hand  in  hand. 

"They'll  get  their  encore,"  said  Kissam 
Ketteltas  ;  "  she  needn't  beg  for  it  with 
those  electric-light  eyes  of  hers.  She's  got 
more  spice  in  her  now  than  she  had  in  Buda- 
pest two  years  ago." 

As  La  Bella  Etelka  and  Signor  Nava- 
rino reappeared,  Robert  White  was  so  sad- 
dened by  the  painful  comparison  he  could 
not  help  making  between  the  Etelka  Tal- 
meyr  of  London  and  La  Bella  Etelka  of 
New  York  that  he  felt  a  sense  of  shame  in 
being  any  longer  a  witness  of  the  woman's 
degradation. 

He  rose,  and  after  a  few  hasty  words  of 
apology  to  Ketteltas  he  left  the  music-hall 
and  went  home. 

"  W'hite's  not  going  to  be  here  to  explain 
the  Gallic  jests  of  the  Great  Albertus  to  you, 
Mat,"  said  Ketteltas  ;  "  but  I'll  do  my  best 
to  replace  him." 

"  Bob  White's  getting  very  high  -  toned 
lately,"  little  Mat  Hitchcock  responded  ; 


A   TALE    OF  THREE   CITIES  207 

"  he  thinks  a  good  deal  too  much  of  him- 
self." 

"There  are  lots  of  us  who  do  that," 
Ketteltas  returned  ;  "  '  it's  a  poor  mule  that 
won't  work  both  ways  ' — if  you  want  another 
motto." 


III. — PARIS. 

About  that  time  Robert  White's  father- 
in-law,  Sam  Sargent,  the  chief  owner  of  the 
Transcontinental  Telegraph  Company  afld  a 
striking  figure  in  Wall  Street,  was  planning 
a  sale  of  certain  of  his  stocks  to  an  English 
syndicate ;  and  when,  some  three  months 
later,  Sir  William  \Varing,  the  head  of  the 
great  London  banking-house  of  Waring, 
Waring  &  Company,  arrived  in  New  York 
on  a  brief  tour  of  inspection  and  in- 
quiry, Mr.  Sargent  seized  the  opportunity 
and  gave  the  visiting  financier  a  dinner  at 
Claremont  It  was  a  most  elaborate  enter- 
tainment, and  the  British  guest  was  equally 
impressed  by  the  beauty  of  the  Riverside 
Drive,  then  in  the  first  freshness  of  its 


208  ETELKA   TALMEYR  : 

spring  greenery  high  above  the  noble  Hud- 
son, which  swelled  along  grandly  below, 
and  by  the  accumulated  wealth  of  the  as- 
sembled company.  One  of  the  newspapers, 
in  its  paragraph  on  the  banquet,  the  Sunday 
after,  declared  that  the  twenty  guests  rep- 
resented more  than  One  Hundred  Millions 
of  Dollars. 

If  tjais  surmise  were  accurate,  then  the 
wealth  was  not  distributed  equally  among 
the  guests,  for  there  were  at  least  two  poor 
men  at  the  table.  Robert  White  was  gen- 
erally invited  to  his  father-in-law's  formal 
dinners,  and  on  the  present  occasion  he 
found  himself  by  the  side  of  his  old  friend, 
Dr.  Cheever. 

"  Is  there  any  germ  theory  of  wealth  ?"  he 
asked  the  doctor,  as  they  took  their  seats. 
"Can  you  isolate  the  bacteria,  and  breed 
riches  at  will  ?" 

Dr.  Cheever  laughed  lightly,  and  returned, 
"  If  wealth  were  contagious,  would  you  ex- 
pose yourself  to  the  danger  of  catching  it, 
or  would  you  come  to  me  to  be  inoculated 
against  the  infection  ?" 

"I  wonder,"  the  journalist  answered  — 


A  TALE   OF   THREE    CITIES 


209 


"  I  wonder  whether  I  should  really  like  to 
be  enormously  rich.  I  doubt  if  I  should 
care  to  give  up  my  mind,  such  as  it  is,  wholly 
to  the  guarding  of  wealth.  That  must  be 
the  most  monstrous  and  enervating  of  pur- 
suits. Of  course  it  has  its  compensations. 
If  I  were  as  rich  as  the  rest  of  our  fellow- 
diners,  I'd  have  my  private  physician  —  at 
least  I'd  offer  the  appointment  to  my  friend 
Dr.  Cheever." 

"  I'm  afraid  one  master  would  be  more 
exacting  than  many,"  the  doctor  responded. 
"  There  is  safety  in  numbers.  I  took  a  rich 
patient  over  to  the  south  of  France  last 
February,  and  the  experience  was  not  so 
pleasant  that  I  care  to  repeat  it.  By-the- 
way,  while  I  was  in  Paris  I  wished  you  were 
with  me  once — " 

"  Only  once  ?"  White  interrupted.  "Then 
I'm  sure  I  shall  not  confer  on  you  my  ap- 
pointment of  physician  in  attendance." 

"  Once  in  particular  I  wished  for  you,"  Dr. 
Cheever  replied.  "  It  was  because  I  could 
have  shown  you  the  answer  to  a  question 
that  we  had  puzzled  over  together.  Do  you 
remember  my  taking  you  to  a  children's  con- 


2IO  ETELKA   TALMEYR  : 

cert  at  the  Stanyhursts'  one  afternoon  in 
June  six  or  seven  years  ago  ?" 

"Of  course  I  recall  that  concert,"  White 
answered,  "  and  I've  got  something  to  tell 
you  about  that  queer  little  girl  we  saw  that 
afternoon— Etelka  Talmeyr." 

The  doctor  finished  his  soup,  and  said : 
"It  was  about  that  same  queer  little  girl 
that  I  was  going  to  tell  you  something.  I 
have  seen  her  again." 

"  So  have  I,"  interposed  White. 

"  Have  you  ?"  Dr.  Cheever  asked,  in  sur- 
prise. "  I  didn't  know  you  had  been  to  Eu- 
rope since  that  summer." 

"  I  haven't,"  White  returned.  "  I  saw  the 
Etelka  here." 

"Here?"  echoed  the  doctor.  "I  didn't 
know  she  had  ever  been  to  this  country." 

"  She  is  here  now,"  White  said. 

"  Impossible,"  cried  Dr.  Cheever.  "  If  the 
prince  were  in  America,  I  should  have  heard 
of  his  arrival." 

"  The  prince  ?"  repeated  White,  amazed. 

"  Yes,"  the  doctor  explained,  "  She  is 
now  a  princess,  the  little  Etelka  Talmeyr  we 
saw  in  London  years  ago." 


A   TALE   OF   THREE   CITIES  211 

"  A  princess,  is  she  ?"  White  returned. 
"  Then  the  prince  must  be  a  queer  speci- 
men." 

"  Prince  Castellamare  is  one  of  the  most 
charming  men  in  Italy,"  the  doctor  explain- 
ed, "  and  one  of  the  most  dignified." 

"  Then  I  should  think  his  dignity  would 
be  shocked  at  the  way  his  wife  exhibits  her- 
self here,"  White  replied. 

"  But  she  can't  be  in  this  country,"  Dr. 
Cheever  declared.  u  She  was  in  Paris  when 
I  left  there,  the  last  week  in  February." 

"  But  I  saw  her  here  in  New  York  the  last 
week  in  February,"  asserted  the  journalist. 

"  You  saw  the  Princess  Castellamare  here 
last  February  ?"  the  physician  asked. 

"  I  don't  know  any  Princess  Castella- 
mare," White  responded.  "  I  know  only 
that  I  saw  Etelka  Talmeyr  here  in  New 
York  in  February  last.  Oh,  I  can  recall  the 
very  date ;  it  was  on  Washington's  Birth- 
day." 

Dr.  Cheever  laid  down  his  fork,  and  looked 
at  his  friend  in  astonishment.  "  Why,  it  was 
on  Washington's  Birthday  that  I  saw  her  in 
Paris,"  he  said.  "  I  can  fix  the  date  easily, 


212  ETELKA    TALMEYR  : 

because  it  was  at  a  reception  at  the  Ameri- 
can minister's  that  I  saw  her — a  reception 
given  in  honor  of  the  national  holiday.  How 
could  the  Princess  Castellamare  be  in  two 
places  at  once  ?" 

"Barring  she  was  a  bird,"  quoted  the 
journalist,  "and  she  is  almost  light  enough 
on  her  feet  to  be  one.  But,  joking  apart, 
you  begin  to  puzzle  me.  I  don't  know  any- 
thing about  any  Princess  Castellamare,  but 
I  do  know  that  I  saw  La  Bella  Etelka  here 
in  New  York  on  the  evening  of  February 
22d,  and  I  am  sure  that  La  Bella  Etelka  and 
the  Etelka  Talmeyr  we  saw  in  London  that 
June  afternoon  are  one  and  the  same  per- 
son." 

"This  is  really  very  extraordinary,"  said 
the  physician.  "  For  my  part,  I  know  noth- 
ing of  any  Bella  Etelka,  whoever  she  may 
be,  but  I  know  for  a  fact  that  on  the  even- 
ing of  February  22d  I  went  to  a  reception 
at  the  American  minister's  in  Paris,  and 
there  I  saw  the  Princess  Castellamare,  and 
I  heard  her  sing ;  and,  beyond  all  question, 
she  is  the  Etelka  Talmeyr  we  heard  play 
that  afternoon  in  London." 


A   TALE   OF  THREE   CITIES  213 

"  See  here,  doctor,"  White  remarked,  ear- 
nestly, "  the  Etelka  Talmeyr  we  saw  in  Lon- 
don can't  have  been  twins,  can  she  ?  She 
can't  have  doubled  up  and  developed  into 
a  princess  in  Paris  and  into  a  variety-show 
performer  here  in  New  York.  It  is  too  early 
along  in  the  dinner  for  us  to  see  double  in 
that  fashion ;  so  we  had  best  tell  each  his 
own  story  in  his  own  fashion,  and  then  we 
can  compare  them,  and  so  discover  which 
of  us  has  been  befooled.  You  can  begin." 

"My  story  is  simplicity  itself,"  the  doc- 
tor said.  "On  the  evening  of  Washington's 
Birthday  I  went  to  a  reception  at  the  Amer- 
ican minister's  in  Paris.  There  was  music, 
of  course ;  we  had  a  contralto  from  the  Op- 
dra,  a  tenor  from  the  Opera  Comique,  and 
two  or  three  of  the  best  amateurs  of  the 
American  colony.  Just  before  the  supper 
was  served  I  was  at  the  door  of  the  music- 
room,  when  I  heard  the  first  notes  of  Schu- 
mann's '  Warum  '  sung  by  a  mezzo-soprano, 
a  voice  of  wonderful  richness  and  softness 
and  flexibility,  trained  to  perfection.  Be- 
sides her  method,  the  vocalist  had  a  full  un- 
derstanding of  the  dramatic  character  of  the 


214  ETELKA    TALMEYR  : 

music.  I  pressed  forward,  and  I  saw  be- 
fore me,  standing  beside  the  piano,  a  very 
handsome  young  woman,  tall,  stately,  with 
raven  hair,  with  a  splendid  throat,  with  flam- 
ing black  eyes,  and  with  the  same  curious 
trick  of  twitching  her  eyebrows  we  had  re- 
marked when  we  heard  that  little  bag  of 
bones  play  in  London.  The  likeness  was 
obvious — indeed,  it  was  unmistakable.  The 
face  had  softened ;  the  lines  had  filled  out ; 
the  contour  was  flowing  now,  and  not  sharp ; 
the  complexion  was  more  delicate,  but  there 
was  the  same  spot  of  color  in  the  cheeks, 
and  there  was  the  same  resolute  glance  from 
the  eyes.  Where  there  had  been  determi- 
nation to  succeed,  I  could  now  see  the  de- 
termination which  had  succeeded.  I  asked 
who  she  was,  and  I  was  told  that  she  was 
the  Princess  Castellamare.  The  prince's 
first  wife  was  an  American  ;  she  died  four 
or  five  years  ago,  and  he  was  inconsolable 
till  he  met  his  present  wife.  They  were  mar- 
ried last  summer.  She  had  been  a  Made- 
moiselle Talmeyr,  and  she  had  made  her 
first  appearance  at  La  Scala  in  Milan  the 
year  before.  I  remembered  that  the  Duch- 


A   TALE   OF   THREE   CITIES  215 

ess  of  Dover  had  told  us  that  Etelka  Tal- 
meyr  had  a  voice.  What  more  natural  than 
that  she  should  tire  of  teaching  and  go  on 
the  stage  ?  As  I  looked  at  her  across  the 
room,  I  recalled  our  talk  about  her,  and  I 
saw  that  she  had  developed  into  a  great 
beauty,  a  great  artist,  and  a  great  lady.  I 
gazed  across  the  room,  and  although  her 
face  was  rounded  now,  I  could  still  detect 
the  firmness  of  the  jaw  which  had  made 
such  a  development  possible." 

"  Is  that  all  ?"  asked  White,  as  his  friend 
paused. 

"  That  is  all,"  the  doctor  answered.  "  I 
have  told  you  how  I  came  to  identify  the 
Princess  Castellamare  with  the  little  Etelka 
Talmeyr  of  years  ago.  I  confess  I  am  curi- 
ous to  hear  your  story,  and  to  discover  how 
you  can  possibly  think  that  you  have  seen 
her  in  this  country  when  I  left  her  in  Eu- 
rope." 

"  My  story  is  quite  as  short  as  yours,  and 
quite  as  plain  and  quite  as  convincing," 
White  declared ;  and  then  he  told  the  doc- 
tor how  he  had  been  alone  on  the  evening 
of  Washington's  Birthday,  how  he  had  dined 


2i6  ETELKA   TALMEYR  : 

at  the  College  Club,  how  Kissam  Ketteltas 
had  taken  him  to  the  Alcazar,  how  he  had 
seen  La  Bella  Etelka  and  Signer  Navarino 
in  their  great  musical  and  terpsichorean 
fantasy,  how  he  had  recognized  La  Bella 
Etelka  as  the  Etelka  Talmeyr  he  and  the 
doctor  had  seen  in  London  years  before, 
how  he  also  had  noticed  the  characteristic 
twitch  of  the  eyebrows,  how  he  had  been 
saddened  that  the  girl  had  not  developed, 
but  had  degraded  and  vulgarized.  "  But," 
he  concluded,  "  that  La  Bella  Etelka,  whom 
I  saw  at  the  Alcazar  on  the  evening  of  Feb- 
ruary 22d,  is  Etelka  Talmeyr  I  am  absolute- 
ly certain." 

"  And  I  am  equaliy  certain,"  the  doctor 
declared,  "  that  the  Princess  Castellamare, 
whom  I  saw  at  the  American  minister's  in 
Paris  on  the  evening  of  February  22d,  is 
Etelka  Talmeyr." 

"Well,"  said  Robert  White,  as  he  began 
on  his  Roman  punch,  "  we  cannot  both  of 
us  be  right." 

"Either  you  are  wrong,"  the  doctor  as- 
serted, "  or—" 

"  Or  you  are,"  White  interrupted.     "  On 


A    TALE   OF  THREE    CITIES  217 

the  22d  of  February  Etelka  Talmeyr  was 
either  in  New  York  or  in  Paris  ;  she  could 
not  have  been  in  both  places.  I  say  she 
was  in  New  York,  and  you  say  she  was  in 
Paris.  There  is  no  possibility  of  reconciling 
our  respective  statements,  is  there  ?" 

"  None  whatever,"  Dr.  Cheever  answered. 
"  But  I  will  allow  you  to  withdraw  yours  if 
you  like." 

"  I'll  do  better,"  returned  the  journalist. 
"  I  will  prove  it ;  at  least  I  will  prove  that 
I  am  right  in  thinking  that  Etelka  Talmeyr 
and  La  Bella  Etelka  are  one  and  the  same 
person." 

"  I'd  like  to  see  you  do  that !"  said  the 
physician,  sarcastically. 

"You  mean  that  you  wouldn't  like  to  see 
me  do  it,"  White  retorted.  "  But  see  it  you 
shall,  and  with  your  own  eyes.  According 
to  your  own  story,  your  Princess  Castella- 
mare  is  now  in  Europe  somewhere." 

"  She  was  in  Paris  when  I  left  there," 
said  the  doctor,  "but  she  has  very  likely 
gone  back  to  Rome  now  with  her  hus- 
band." 

"Exactly  so,"   White  went   on.      "Your 


2i8  ETELKA   TALMEYR  : 

Princess  Castellamare  is  at  least  three  thou- 
sand miles  off,  and  you  can't  show  her  to 
me.  But  La  Bella  Etelka  is  still  here  in 
New  York  at  the  Alcazar,  and  I  can  show 
her  to  you.  And  I  propose  to  do  it,  too. 
You  shall  be  convinced  by  your  own  eyes. 
Dine  with  me  to-morrow,  and  we  will  go  to 
the  Alcazar  together,  and  you  shall  see  for 
yourself." 

"I  will  dine  with  you  with  pleasure," 
the  doctor  replied.  "And  I  will  see  for 
myself." 

"For  the  present,"  White  declared,  "let 
us  have  peace.  Let  us  possess  our  souls  in 
patience.  Let  us  do  justice  to  my  father-in- 
law's  hospitality.  It  is  now  the  middle  of 
May,  and  the  game-laws  are  in  force,  so  I 
draw  your  attention  to  the  Alaskan  ptarmi- 
gan which  is  now  about  to  be  served." 

"  I  didn't  know  there  were  any  ptarmigan 
in  Alaska,"  said  the  doctor,  innocently. 

"  There  isn't,"  White  responded,  as  he 
helped  himself  to  the  prairie-chicken. 


A   TALE   OF  THREE   CITIES  219 


IV. — NEW   YORK. 

The  next  evening  Dr.  Cheever  and  Mr. 
White  sat  side  by  side  in  the  Alcazar,  the 
tawdry  gilding  of  which  was  already  begin- 
ning to  be  tarnished  by  tobacco  smoke. 
They  arrived  in  time  to  see  Miss  Queenie 
Dougherty,  the  Irish  Empress,  respond  to 
her  third  encore,  and  to  hear  her  sing  about 
"  The  Belle  of  the  old  Eighth  Ward,"  the 
chorus  of  which  declared  that 

"When  Thady  O'Gracly 
Came  courtin'  Nell  Brady 
There  wasn't  a  lady 
As  pretty,  as  witty,  in  the  whole  of  the  city." 

They  had  the  pleasure  of  seeing  the 
Human  Sea-serpent  give  his  marvellous  ex- 
hibition of  contortionism  in  a  Crystal  Casket 
of  real  water.  Then  Prince  Sionara,  the 
Royal  and  Unrivalled  Japanese  Juggler, 
made  butterflies  out  of  bits  of  paper,  and 
forced  them  to  flutter  hither  and  thither 
about  the  stage,  after  which  he  spun  a  top 


220  ETELKA    TALMEYR  : 

in  the  air  and  caught  it  on  the  edge  of  a 
sword,  and  did  other  strange  feats,  as  is  the 
custom  of  Japanese  princes  in  variety  shows, 
concluding  with  his  Celebrated  Cyclone 
Slide  on  the  Silver  Wire  from  the  upper 
gallery  backward  to  the  stage. 

"  Now,"  said  White,  as  the  Japanese 
bowed  himself  off  the  stage  —  "  now  we  are 
to  have  Etelka  Talmeyr,"  and  he  handed 
his  programme  to  Dr.  Cheever,  pointing  to 
the  lines  announcing  La  Bella  Etelka  and 
Signer  Navarino  in  their  great  musical  and 
terpsichorean  fantasy. 

The  screen  which  served  as  a  drop-curtain 
parted  in  the  middle,  and  disclosed  the  piano 
on  one  side  of  the  stage;  and  then  the 
wretched  little  parody  of  a  man  led  on  his 
tall,  dark,  striking  partner,  and  escorted  her 
to  the  instrument. 

"  Don't  you  see  the  likeness?"  cried  White. 
"  It  is  unmistakable." 

"  Of  course  I  see  it,"  the  doctor  answered. 
"  But  it  is  a  likeness  only,  a  likeness  such  as 
one  may  see  any  day." 

As  La  Bella  Etelka  seated  herself  at  the 
piano  and  struck  the  opening  notes  of 


A    TALE    OF    THREE    CITIES  221 

Chopin's  Waltz  in  A  Minor  she  looked  out 
across  the  footlights  at  the  audience,  and 
her  eyebrows  twitched  automatically,  as 
they  had  done  when  White  had  watched 
her  before. 

"  Did  you  see  that  twitch  of  the  eye- 
brows ?"  he  asked,  triumphantly.  "  Did 
you  ever  see  any  one  who  had  that  trick 
and  who  looked  like  that  except  the  Etelka 
Talmeyr  we  saw  in  London  years  ago  ?" 

"Yes,"  the  doctor  answered,  "I  have 
seen  the  Princess  Castellamare  ;  she  looks 
like  this  poor  creature  here,  and  she  has 
that  same  twitch.  And,  as  I  told  you  last 
night,  I  am  sure  that  she  is  the  Etelka  Tal- 
meyr we  saw  in  London." 

"  You  are  unconvinced  still  ?"  White 
asked. 

"  Quite  unconvinced,"  Dr.  Cheever  re- 
sponded. The  Princess  Castellamare  was 
a  Mademoiselle  Talmeyr,  and  she  is  now 
about  the  age  the  Etelka  Talmeyr  we  saw 
ought  to  be  by  this  time.  This  Bella  Etelka 
of  yours  is  five  or  ten  years  too  old." 

"She  looks  older  than  Etelka  Talmeyr 
might  look,  I'll  admit,"  the  journalist  re- 


222  ETELKA    TALMEYR  : 

turned  ;  "  but  she  has  had  a  hard  life,  ob- 
viously, and  she  shows  it.  A  woman  doesn't 
keep  her  youth  in  an  atmosphere  like  this.7' 

"That  is  true  enough,"  the  doctor  ac- 
knowledged. 

"Let's  put  two  and  two  together,"  White 
went  on.  "  It  is  seven  years  since  we  were 
in  London,  and  Etelka  Talmeyr  was  then 
fifteen  or  sixteen,  so  she  may  be  twenty- 
three  now.  La  Bella  Etelka  here  looks 
twenty-six,  or  thereabouts ;  but  will  you 
declare  that  she  is  really  more  than  twenty- 
three  ?" 

The  doctor  gazed  intently  at  La  Bella 
Etelka  as  she  and  the  little  Italian  gyrated 
about  the  stage. 

"  No,"  he  said,  at  last.  "  This  woman 
may  be  any  age  you  please,  and  she  is 
astoundingly  like  the  girl  we  saw  in  London. 
I  see  the  resemblance  more  and  more  the 
longer  I  look  at  her.  She  has  the  sensual 
mouth  I  noticed  then,  and  the  cunning  lips 
too.  .  In  fact,  I  see  in  this  woman  here  the 
development  of  all  the  less  pleasing  char- 
acteristics of  the  Etelka  Talmeyr  we  specu- 
lated about  seven  years  ago,  just  as  I  saw 


A   TALE   OF    THREE   CITIES  223 

in  the  Princess  Castellamare  the  develop- 
ment of  all  her  pleasanter  qualities.  In  the 
little  girl  in  London  there  were  the  possibil- 
ities of  a  beauty,  an  artist,  a  lady,  and  the 
Princess  Castellamare  is  all  three.  But 
there  was  in  her  also  the  possibility  of  a 
degradation  such  as  we  see  on  the  stage 
now." 

"In  other  words,"  commented  White, 
"  you  think  that  the  little  Etelka  Talmeyr  is 
a  female  Jekyll  and  Hyde,  with  the  added 
faculty  of  sending  the  bad  Hyde  on  this 
side  of  the  Atlantic,  while  the  good  Jekyll 
on  the  other  marries  a  fairy  prince  ?  That's 
a  picturesque  explanation  of  our  dilemma, 
of  course,  but  isn't  it  a  little  lacking  in 
scientific  probability  ?" 

Dr.  Cheever  did  not  answer  for  a  minute. 
His  eyes  were  following  the  tall  figure  in 
the  long  silk  dress  as  it  floated  languidly 
across  the  stage  in  time  to  the  music  of  the 
waltz.  He  extracted  a  coin  from  his  pocket, 
dropped  it  in  a  slot  on  the  back  of  the  chair 
next  to  him,  and  released  an  opera -glass  ; 
with  this  he  took  another  long  look  at  the 
dancer. 


224  ETELKA    TALMEYR  : 

Then  handing  the  glass  to  White,  he  said, 
"  This  woman  is  much  older  than  she  looks. 
There  are  signs  which  are  unmistakable. 
Look  at  the  wrinkles  around  her  eyes  and 
below  her  chin.  She  is  at  least  ten  years 
older  than  the  Etelka  Talmeyr  we  saw  in 
London." 

White  took  the  glass  and  gazed  in  his 
turn.  "  You  are  right,"  he  admitted,  frank- 
ly, "  she  does  look  older ;  but,  for  all  that, 
I  think  —  "  Here  he  broke  off  suddenly  and 
called  to  a  man  who  was  about  to  take  a 
seat  near  them.  "  Brackett !" 

"  Hello,  White,"  responded  the  gentleman 
thus  hailed,  turning  suddenly  and  dropping 
into  the  nearest  chair.  "  I  didn't  know  you 
took  in  this  sort  of  thing  often." 

"  I  don't,"  White  answered.  "  I  come  as 
little  as  possible ;  and  to-night  we  are  here 
for  a  purpose,  Dr.  Cheever  and  I.  Dr. 
Cheever,  Mr.  Harry  Brackett." 

The  two  men  bowed.  Harry  Brackett  of- 
fered the  doctor  his  box  of  cigarettes. 

"  I  am  here  regularly.  They'll  let  you 
smoke  here,  and  then  you  see  all  sorts  of 
things.'1 


A   TALE   OF    THREE   CITIES  225 

"  I  called  Brackett  over,"  said  White  to 
the  doctor,  but  so  that  the  new-comer  could 
hear  him,  "because  I  believe  he  can  help 
us  out.  He  has  been  a  reporter,  and  he  has 
managed  a  panorama,  and  last  winter  he 
wrote  an  alleged  farce -comedy  for  Daisy 
Fostelle,  and  he  probably  knows  more  people 
and  more  different  kinds  of  people  than  any 
other  man  in  New  York." 

"  That's  true,"  assented  Harry  Brackett. 
"  You  never  can  tell  when  knowing  a  man 
will  come  in  handy." 

"  Do  you  happen  to  know  the  manager  of 
this  place,  or  the  stage  -  manager  ?"  asked 
White. 

"  I  know  them  both,"  was  the  response. 
"  I  know  the  manager  best,  but  Zeke  Kil- 
burn  has  a  swelled  head  since  he  got  this 
show.  He  owns  the  earth,  and  has  a  first 
mortgage  on  the  rest  of  the  solar  system. 
But  I  guess  I  can  work  him.  What  do  you 
want  ?" 

"We  want  to  find  out  about  La  Bella 

Etelka  here,  and  whether   she   used  to  be 

called  Etelka  Talmeyr,  and  whether  she  is 

any  relation  to  the  Princess  Castellamare." 

15 


226  ETELKA   TALMEYR  : 

"  I  guess  she's  no  relation  to  any  princess, 
or  we  should  have  seen  it  in  the  paragraphs 
before  this,"  said  the  ex -manager  of  the 
panorama.  "  I  don't  know  anything  about 
her,  but  I  believe  that  she  is  married  to  that 
little  chap  who  does  a  dancing  act  with  her. 
She  is  very  jealous  of  him,  too ;  flared  up 
like  a  volcano  the  other  night  because  he 
complimented  Queenie  Dougherty  on  her 
new  song.  There  came  near  being  a  hair- 
pulling  scrap ;  but  Zeke  Kilburn  happened 
along  just  then,  and  he  separated  them. 
Tell  me  just  what  it  is  that  you  want  to 
know,  and  I'll  see  what  I  can  do  for 
you." 

Thereupon  White  set  forth  with  perfect 
fairness  the  point  at  issue  between  the  doc- 
tor and  himself,  and  explained  why  it  was 
they  were  interested  in  knowing  whether 
the  Etelka  Talmeyr  of  London  was  the 
Mademoiselle  Talmeyr  of  Milan,  now  the 
Princess  Castellamare  of  Rome,  or  whether 
she  was  La  Bella  Etelka  of  New  York. 

"  I  think  I  see  what  you  want,"  Harry 
Brackett  declared,  as  he  rose  to  his  feet. 
"  And  I  guess  I  can  get  it  for  you.  Keep 


A   TALE    OF   THREE   CITIES  227 

my  seat  for  me,  and  I'll  come  back  as  soon 
as  I  can." 

Lighting  another  cigarette,  and  throwing 
the  empty  box  under  the  chair,  Mr.  Harry 
Brackett  left  them,  and  walked  away  to  the 
manager's  office. 

On  the  stage  La  Bella  Etelka  and  Signor 
Navarino  were  concluding  their  musical  and 
terpsichorean  fantasy ;  side  by  side  they  ad- 
vanced from  the  scenery  at  the  back  to  the 
trembling  footlights,  each  in  turn  lifting  a 
foot  over  the  other's  head  as  they  danced 
down,  to  the  wild  applause  of  the  spectators. 

White  and  Cheever  waited  patiently  as 
the  successive  numbers  of  the  variety  enter- 
tainment followed  one  another.  The  Sen- 
yah  Sisters,  two  pretty  girls,  with  lithe  and 
graceful  figures,  climbed  to  a  double  trapeze 
in  the  arch  of  the  proscenium,  and  went 
through  the  usual  intricate  performance 
commingled  of  skill  and  danger.  Then  Mr. 
Mike  McCarthy  gave  his  World  -  renowned 
Impersonation  of  the  Old-time  Darky,  in 
the  course  of  which  he  sang  an  interminable 
topical  song,  accompanying  himself  on  the 
banjo.  Finally  came  the  last  number  on 


228  ETELKA   TALMEYR  : 

the  programme,  a  so-called  burlesque  ex- 
travaganza, compounded  of  noisy  songs  and 
halting  verses.  Bored  as  they  were  and 
weary,  White  and  Cheever  felt  sorry  for  the 
poor  actors,  straining  themselves  vainly  to 
give  a  double  meaning  to  words  devoid  of 
any. 

At  last,  when  the  tether  of  their  patience 
was  stretched  almost  to  the  breaking-point, 
Harry  Brackett  reappeared,  and  dropped 
into  the  seat  they  had  kept  for  him. 

"  Did  you  discover  anything  ?"  asked  Dr. 
Cheever. 

"  Is  La  Bella  Etelka  the  Etelka  Talmeyr 
we  saw  together  in  London,"  White  inquired, 
"  or  isn't  she  ?" 

"One  at  a  time,  please,"  Brackett  re- 
sponded. "And  give  me  a  cigarette,  if 
you've  got  one.  Then  I'll  tell  you  what 
I've  found  out." 

Robert  White  proffered  his  cigarette-case. 

Harry  Brackett  helped  himself.  "Thanks," 
he  said.  "Egyptian,  ain't  they?  Too  rich 
for  my  blood  nowadays;  I  stick  to  the  na- 
tive article." 

Dr.  Cheever  handed  him  a  lighted  match. 


A   TALE   OF    THREE   CITIES  229 

"Thank  you,"  he  went  on,  puffing  at  his 
cigarette.  "Well,  I  found  out  several  things. 
I've  got  the  key  to  your  mystery.  And 
the  answer  isn't  at  all  what  either  of  you 
thinks." 

"  How  so  ?"  began  White  ;  "  isn't—" 

"  Best  let  him  tell  his  story  in  his  own 
way,"  the  doctor  interrupted. 

"That's  what  I  think,"  assented  Harry 
Brackett.  "  And  I'll  be  as  brief  as  I  can, 
too.  I  happened  on  Zeke  Kilburn  at  the 
door  here,  and  I  got  him  to  take  me  behind. 
First  thing  we  stumbled  on  the  little  Dago 
—  Signer  Navarino.  Zeke  knocked  him 
down  to  me,  and  I  froze  to  him  at  once,  and 
took  him  into  the  cork-room  and  blew  him 
off  to  a  bottle,  and  got  him  to  talk  about 
himself.  In  less  than  five  minutes  I  turned 
him  inside  out  as  easy  as  an  old  kid  glove. 
There  isn't  anything  he  wouldn't  tell  me  if 
I  asked  him.  So  I  dropped  a  question  or 
two  about  La  Bella  Etelka.  And  she  wasn't 
in  London  seven  years  ago." 

Dr.  Cheever  looked  at  White  with  an  air 
of  triumph. 

"For  the   good  and   sufficient  reason," 


230  ETELKA   TALMEYR  : 

Harry  Brackett  continued,  "  that  she  was 
then  in  South  America,  singing  in  comic 
opera — '  La  Perichole,'  you  know,  and  the 
'Timbale  d'Argent.'  She  had  been  in  Lon- 
don once  upon  a  time,  about  ten  years  ago, 
when  she  was  a  music-teacher,  or  something 
of  that  sort—" 

"  So  she  was  once  a  music-teacher  in  Lon- 
don?" White  interrupted.  "Then  I  don't 
see  why — "  Then  he  checked  himself. 

Harry  Brackett  continued  :  "  She  was  a 
widow,  and  she  got  stuck  on  a  Dutchman, 
who  came  over  with  a  French  comic  opera 
company,  and  she  just  dropped  everything 
and  went  off  with  him.  Four  or  five  years 
ago  he  died  —  that's  the  Dutchman  —  and 
she  drifted  into  the  variety  business.  She 
met  the  little  Dago  in  Budapest  a  year  or 
two  ago  ;  he's  a  mean  little  cuss,  but  she 
has  married  him  all  the  same.  She's  worth 
a  dozen  of  him  easy.  From  things  he  let 
on,  I  sized  her  up,  and  I  made  a  guess  as  to 
her  relation  to  the  Princess  Castellamare." 

"  I  see,"  said  White.  "  The  princess  is  her 
younger  sister." 

"Then   you   can't   see   straight,"  Harry 


A   TALE   OF   THREE   CITIES  231 

Brackett  retorted,  "because  the  princess 
isn't  her  sister.  I  made  a  guess,  as  I  say, 
and  I  wanted  to  find  out  if  I'd  struck  it.  So 
I  shook  the  little  Dago,  and  I  went  back  on 
the  stage  and  found  Kilburn  again,  and  I 
got  him  to  introduce  me  to  La  Bella  Etelka, 
who  was  just  ready  to  go  on  in  the  bur- 
lesque. She  is  a  good-looking  woman,  for 
all  she's  forty." 

"  Forty  ?"  cried  White.  "  Come,  now, 
that's  impossible." 

"  It's  true,"  Brackett  returned.  "  She 
confessed  to  it— indirectly,  but  it's  straight 
enough.  I  complimented  her,  and  I  made 
myself  as  solid  as  I  could.  You  see  I  had 
my  idea,  and  I  wanted  to  find  out  about  it. 
So  at  last  I  made  a  brace.  I  said,  suddenly, 
4  There's  a  friend  of  mine  in  front,  just  back 
from  Paris,  and  he  tells  me  he  saw  the  Prin- 
cess Castellamare  just  before  he  left.'  She 
flushed  up,  and  asked,  *  How  was  she  ?  Is 
she  well  ?  I  wish  I  could  see  her.'  Then  I 
told  her  what  the  doctor  here  had  said — 
how  the  princess  was  looking  beautiful, 
and  how  she  sang  like  an  angel.  Then 
she  turned  on  me  all  of  a  sudden,  and 


232  ETELKA    TALMEYR  : 

said,  ;  How  did  you  know  about  my  daugh- 
ter ?' " 

"Her  daughter?"  White  interrupted. 

"  Yes,"  Brackett  answered  ;  "  that  was 
my  guess.  And  it  rang  the  bell  the  very 
first  shot  too.  She  grabbed  me  by  the  arm 
and  said,  '  She  doesn't  know  about  me, 
does  she?  The  prince  doesn't  suspect?' 
And  then  I  knew  I'd  sized  the  thing  up 
about  right." 

"  I  confess  I  do  not  quite  see — "  began 
the  doctor. 

"  It's  simple  enough,"  explained  Harry 
Brackett.  "  She'd  run  away  from  London 
and  abandoned  her  daughter,  leaving  her  in 
good  hands,  though.  She  had  kept  track  of 
her  always,  and  she  was  delighted  when  she 
heard  of  the  success  of  Mademoiselle  Tal- 
meyr  at  Milan.  Then  she  was  just  going  to 
write  to  her  daughter,  a  little  doubtful  of 
the  reception  she  would  get,  or  how  the 
daughter  would  take  the  news  that  the 
mother  was  alive  she  had  so  long  thought 
dead,  when  all  at  once  she  heard  that  Mad- 
emoiselle Talmeyr  was  going  to  marry 
Prince  Castellamare.  Then  she  knew  she 


A   TALE   OF   THREE  CITIES  233 

had  better  not  say  a  word.  She  had  heard 
enough  about  Italian  princes  to  suppose  that 
they  wouldn't  like  a  mother -in  law  on  the 
variety  stage  doing  a  song-and-dance  act. 
So  long  as  the  daughter  thought  the  mother 
was  dead,  the  old  woman  reckoned  that  she 
had  better  stay  dead.  And  I  left  her  just 
paralyzed  with  wonder  that  I  had  dropped 
on  a  secret  she  didn't  suppose  anybody  else 
in  the  world  knew.  And  it  is  funny,  isn't  it  ?" 

"  The  maternal  instinct  seems  to  have 
awakened  very  tardily,"  the  doctor  remarked. 

"  It  was  pretty  slow,  for  a  fact,"  Brackett 
admitted.  "  But  I  guess  it  was  there  all  the 
same — slow  but  sure." 

"  Well,"  said  White,  "  if  she  keeps  away 
from  her  daughter  she  will  enjoy  the  very 
highest  feminine  felicity — the  luxury  of  self- 
sacrifice." 

"  Yes,"  Brackett  smilingly  agreed.  "  I 
think  that  she  was  about  as  glad  that  I 
knew  about  it  as  she  was  sorry." 

At  that  moment  the  music  of  the  brazen 
orchestra  swelled  out,  and  part  of  the  scen- 
ery at  the  back  of  the  stage  fell  apart,  dis- 
closing the  Fairy  Queen  glittering  in  the 


234  ETELKA  TALMEYR:  A  TALE  OF  THREE  CITIES 

glare  of  the  calcium-light,  and  with  her  opu- 
lent figure  daringly  revealed  by  her  splen- 
did costume. 

"  I  wonder,"  remarked  Robert  White,  fore- 
seeing the  end  of  the  play,  and  rising  with 
his  two  friends — "  I  wonder  what  your  Prin- 
cess Castellamare  is  doing  in  Rome  now, 
while  La  Bella  Etelka  is  on  exhibition  here 
in  New  York?'1' 

"That's  easy  enough,"  Harry  Brackett 
answered,  as  they  turned  their  backs  to  the 
stage  and  walked  towards  the  door.  "  There 
is  five  or  six  hours'  difference  in  time,  isn't 
there  ?  Well,  it's  nearly  twelve  o'clock  here, 
so  I  guess  your  princess  over  there  is  get- 
ting her  beauty-sleep — that  is,  unless  she 
sits  up  five  hours  later  than  her  mother, 
which  isn't  likely." 

(1892.) 


THE  END. 


BY  BRANDER   MATTHEWS. 


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